Down the Rabbit Hole
by Lynse
Summary: Wirt had heard a lot of stories about college, but somehow, he still wasn't prepared for one of his roommate's crazy friends to smuggle a hatchet into their dorm room. (Also crosses with Gravity Falls and Danny Phantom) Future fic/college AU (technically)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The title was actually given to me by an anon on tumblr in a fic title ask; this is the story I said I'd write to fit such a title. This story will focus on Wirt (OtGW), Toby (Trollhunters), and Wendy (Gravity Falls), and eventually introduce Jazz (Danny Phantom). Post-series for all fandoms, set in college so I suppose _technically_ a college au, not just a future fic. For lumanae on tumblr. Standard disclaimers apply. Happy New Year, everyone! Please let me know what you think if you've the time.

* * *

Wirt stared.

It was his first week of college. His first week on campus, really, as he'd only moved in the day before term began. (He still had a couple of boxes on his desk to unpack.) He'd heard plenty of crazy stories, but that was to be expected. He'd already learned not to believe everything that came out of his roommate Toby's mouth, just as he'd learned that he was to call Toby's grandmother Nana whenever Toby honoured her request to drag him down for a weekend visit so she could get to know him.

Some classes had given general overviews for their first lecture, and the others had jumped right into it and he felt like he was already scrambling to catch up. Sometimes, he thought it was lucky he'd managed to make it to class on time, especially since he'd already gotten lost in the basement of the chemistry building looking for the place his biology lab would be held next week. Frankly, he was lucky that Toby had taken pity on him and given him the rundown on the best places on campus to get food and caffeine, not to mention showing him a couple of underground shortcuts he hadn't even realized existed.

It had been a crash course, but he'd learned the ropes.

At least, he'd thought he had.

But that was before Toby's friend Wendy 'straight out of the wilds of Oregon' Corduroy had smuggled an axe into their dorm room.

"That's…that's an actual axe," Wirt said. He knew the door was closed, knew it was locked, knew no one could possibly walk in on them, but he managed to tear his eyes off the axe just long enough to check again anyway.

Wendy snorted. She was perched on Toby's desk, already reaching into her pocket for a stick of gum. "It's a hatchet, squirt. Which means it's smaller and lighter than what you're thinking of."

"He's not technically wrong, though," Toby said. Wendy stuck her tongue out at him before popping the gum into her mouth.

Maybe he'd accidentally ended up bunking with a psychopath.

Toby picked up the hatchet and examined it. "It seems to be weighted well."

Maybe he could ask for a room reassignment.

"Of _course_ it's weighted well. You met my family on moving day, Domzalski. I'd be disowned if I couldn't pick out the best of the bunch."

This was insane. That was a weapon. It wasn't allowed. How had she even—!

"I'll teach you guys how to throw it this weekend," Wendy said. "It'll take you a while to get the hang of it."

"Eh, I figure I'll pick it up quick," Toby said with a smirk. "Wirt's the one who'll need to figure out the balance when throwing."

He had no idea how he'd even gotten to be a part of this. Why had they involved him? This would make him an accomplice! Could he even report this without getting into trouble?

Did he want to risk it when his roommate had a hatchet and figured he already knew how to throw it? When he had a friend who definitely _did_ know how to throw it?

"I…I don't know if I really need to," Wirt said slowly. "I mean, I've already gotten a bunch of readings and assignments—"

"Hey." Wendy pointed at him. "Neither of you look like you could survive the apocalypse, okay? I just want to make sure my friends are safe if it happens."

Toby laughed. "I don't think zombies are what we need to worry about."

Wendy shrugged. "I never said anything about zombies. But this stays between us. Meet me at my place Saturday morning. We'll go out to the country for practice, just the three of us."

"Um." Wirt swallowed. "What about _your_ roommate?"

"Jazz? I'm not worried about her. She might not look it, but that girl can handle herself. She just doesn't know how to hide her weapons. You two, on the other hand…."

"Oh, come on, don't lump me in with him," Toby said, jabbing a thumb in Wirt's direction. "I'd be way better in a fight."

Even _Jazz_ had weapons? That weren't Wendy's? He'd only met her for a few minutes when Toby had introduced him to Wendy, barely remembered what she looked like beyond the red hair, but she'd seemed nice. Stable. Unlike the people he was currently with.

"I'll be the judge of that on Saturday." Wendy hopped off the desk. "In the meantime, find a good hiding spot. Concealed but accessible. Sorry I've gotta cut and run, but I'm gonna be late for a library study session with my grade-obsessed roomie. Give it three weeks, and then it'll get to her." She unlocked the door and tossed a two-fingered salute at them over her shoulder. "Later."

Wirt slowly sunk down onto his bed even as Toby crossed the floor to lock the door behind Wendy. "What…what are we going to do with that?"

Toby eyed the hatchet for a moment. "Drive some nails into the wall and hide it behind a poster between our beds?"

"You're kidding."

"It's better than behind the dresser. Or under a bed or in one of the desk drawers. When you're attacked, they don't really give you time to grab your stuff."

"Welcome to college, Wirt," Wirt muttered. Louder, he said, "I don't even have a hammer."

Toby grinned. "Don't worry, I've got us covered."

* * *

Saturday was a disaster.

Wendy had had her truck packed by the time they got there, and by ten, Wirt had no idea where they were. After the hour drive and half hour hike, Wendy was setting up targets and Toby had the audacity to start humming.

Things got worse once Wendy's lessons began.

Wirt couldn't seem to hit a target. Any target. No matter how close he was. Well, fine, if he was really close, sometimes he _could_ hit the target, but he couldn't get anything to stick. Even if the hatchet miraculously hit blade first, he couldn't get the angle right.

It took him six hours (not including their picnic lunch, courtesy of Wendy) to chip the corner of Wendy's wooden target. His arm had been aching since the first hour, even when he'd started switching between his throwing arms and taking copious breaks. None of Wendy's advice helped.

Toby, on the other hand, stuck a bullseye on his third try.

And then he just got more consistent.

"How are you good at this?" Wirt asked at one point.

Toby smirked. "I have many hidden talents."

Somehow, that wasn't comforting.

Wendy wound up giving Toby a passing grade, but on the drive home, she informed Wirt that he was slated for extra lessons. "You're not dying on me," she said when he tried to protest.

"Funny, I'd believe that more if you weren't trying to kill me."

She laughed. "Trust me, I'm not there yet."

Yet?

"C'mon, I'll train you," Toby piped up, nudging him in the shoulder. The truck was only a three-seater, and Wirt was trapped in the middle. "We'll get a dartboard or something and at least work on your aim. Totally innocuous stuff."

"I see why you two get on so well," Wirt grumbled. He had a feeling they wouldn't let this drop. If that were a possibility, they wouldn't have gone so far away to train. Or spent most of the daylight doing it.

He didn't know why, but whatever this was, it wasn't just some fad for them. Wendy seemed to genuinely believe she was helping, and Toby was too good to just be in it for kicks. He wouldn't have minded the training, but it couldn't just be for survival training. Actual survival training would involve more than how to throw a hatchet into a homemade target. He could handle the sewing part, but scavenging? He was little better than he'd been in the Unknown. He was better at playing a musical instrument than crafting something useful. He didn't—

Seriously. Why were they both so chill about this whole apocalypse thing? Did they think it was a joke?

Maybe they were hazing him or something. That was a thing in college, wasn't it? Something people did before you were officially accepted into whatever it was?

Maybe they hadn't just met, either. Maybe they were actually long-time friends and saw him as a gullible target. And he couldn't blame them. He'd fallen for a lot over the years.

But…this was kinda elaborate for a prank, wasn't it?

It had to be a practical joke, though. There weren't any other options. How could it _not_ be a joke? This was the real world, not…whatever the Unknown had been. The apocalypse wasn't _actually_ going to happen. Not in his lifetime. Not unless the Powers that Be decided to fight each other, and he was pretty sure everyone valued their own lives too much for that to happen.

It was possible his new friends were conspiracy theorists, but….

No. More likely, he had an overactive imagination.

 _Way_ more likely.

An overactive imagination, and two new friends who were jokers.

Whatever. Greg would have an idea to get them back. He was better at that sort of thing. For now, Wirt was better off sitting back and trying to enjoy the ride.

* * *

Wirt had no idea how Wendy had gotten a key to their place, but she wasn't shy about using it.

To be fair, he hadn't asked Toby if he knew, but he hadn't wanted to in case he didn't like the answer. He wasn't entirely confident that Toby had procured it for her. He'd made the mistake of asking Wendy how she'd gotten it once, and she'd just smirked.

Ignorance seemed safer.

So when she waltzed in when he was trying to wrap his head around his calculus assignment, all he said was, "Toby's in a bio lab till four and I don't have time for extra practice." It wasn't worth commenting on the fact that he'd locked himself in in an effort to focus.

A futile one, apparently.

Wendy leaned against the edge of his desk. "You're getting better, Wirt, but you're not getting that much better. Do you and Toby even use that dartboard he bought?"

"He does," Wirt mumbled.

Wendy hummed and picked up one of his assignments and started flipping through it. A month of telling her to stop hadn't quelled her habit of snooping. Wirt figured it wasn't worth fighting, that she probably would stop if she knew he was anything more than mildly annoyed, but— "Did you ever have to do derivatives?"

"I'm not here to crunch numbers," Wendy said without looking up. She was frowning. "Wirt, is this an analogy for death?"

"Is what what?"

"This Unknown place you wrote about."

Wirt froze. His creative writing assignment. He hadn't realized that's what she was looking at. He'd had a few assignments in the last few days that required him to hand in hard copies, but that—

"It's pretty detailed. I didn't know you could write like this." The papers were tossed on top of his math book. "So, spill. Death? Limbo? Purgatory? Or just, like, a coming-of-age story dealing with responsibility and struggles and accepting certain things about yourself and whatever?"

There was a note in her voice he hadn't heard before. Not desperation, nothing like that, but not joking, either. Not like he'd expect. But it was more than just curiosity. Harder. Like a command lay beneath it.

Wirt carefully flipped the papers back over and moved the assignment off to the side. "Honestly, I don't even know," he said. "I just wrote. And tried to stick a bunch of themes in there. It's probably all of that stuff."

She stared at him. Pursed her lips. Moved her gaze down to his math work. And then tapped the question he was working on in the textbook and said, "You copied that down wrong. It's f double prime, not f prime. I'll catch up with you guys later."

She was gone before he had a chance to ask her why she'd come in the first place.

* * *

Wirt was almost asleep when he heard, "So what's the Unknown?"

He groaned. "I turned that assignment in _two weeks ago_. Can't you guys give it a rest?"

"Maybe if you give me an answer. So sue me. Wendy's got me curious."

"I'd rather slug you," Wirt muttered into his pillow, pulling his spare over his head. "Do we have to do this now?"

"It _was_ pretty detailed. How'd you think of it?"

"I have a good imagination."

A snort. "Huh, and here I thought you might've wandered into another dimension."

Wirt was too tired to laugh. Too tired to _pretend_ to laugh. "You done yet?"

"Almost. One of my friends is on break next week. They've got a reading week. She's coming to visit. She can't crash here, obviously, but Wendy and Jazz have a couch they said she could call home, so she'll be around. A lot."

"Great."

"I just figured I should warn you."

"Why would you need to warn me?" A heads up was fine, expected even, but _warning_? Toby didn't use that word lightly.

Toby didn't answer, just mumbled a goodnight before creaking springs and rustling blankets meant he was rolling over and planning on not talking anymore.

Unfortunately, Wirt was already awake.

* * *

When Wirt met Toby's friend Claire, he understood why Toby got along so well with Wendy.

"Nice to meet you," she said, very politely shaking his hand. And then, without missing a beat, she turned to Toby. "Why the hatchet behind the movie poster?"

She'd been in their dorm room a grand total of two and a half minutes, tops. Just long enough to finish the introductions. It's not like the hatchet was _that_ visible; it had taken them forever to hide it beneath the poster so that it couldn't be seen, and no one else who had stopped by their room had ever commented on it. So how come she'd managed to spot it so quickly?

She wouldn't be asking Toby about the hatchet if she'd known where it was, not unless he'd been putting her off until she came in person, but what kind of sense did that make?

Toby grinned. "Insurance," he said. "Y'know. In case of monsters."

Claire's eyebrows rose, and her eyes flicked towards Toby's desk and then to Wirt before finding Toby again. "Monsters," she repeated. "Right."

She didn't sound skeptical, like a normal person. She…she almost sounded resigned.

"Does it at least have good balance? It's weighted well?"

Really, it made instant sense that Toby was friends with Claire _and_ Wendy.

Maybe Toby had at least told her to look for _something_ hidden in their room, if not that it was a hatchet. Or maybe he hadn't told her where it was, just that they had a hatchet in the first place. Maybe she hadn't just walked in and spotted their secret instantly, without even knowing they were hiding one.

Toby made an exaggerated gesture towards the hidden hatchet. "See for yourself, señorita."

Claire's exclamation of delight as she handled the weapon—and, more to the point, the ease with which she wielded it—made Wirt think Toby's warning hadn't been entirely unfounded.

* * *

Toby and Claire didn't spend much time in the dorm room after all, but Wirt didn't have to be a genius to figure out that the two kept talking about something and didn't want to say too much around him. All he understood was that it involved someone else named Jim—likely as not, the third in the high school photo Toby had taped above his desk. Considering the only others up there was one of his nana with her cat and one of him with Wirt and Wendy, it seemed a safe enough bet.

They talked about a few other people, but most of those were by some nickname. More to the point, they were nicknames he didn't recognize, so even if Toby had told him about these people, he couldn't piece it together. (Though he had no idea how someone got to be named Blinky, Not-Enrique had to be some inside joke. Maybe he looked like someone named Enrique and kept getting mistaken for him by people who only knew Enrique?) Anyway, it was too hard to keep them straight when he wasn't supposed to be eavesdropping in the first place.

It wasn't until Claire was actually gone that Wirt finally worked up the courage to ask Toby about the stuff he'd heard. "Is your friend in trouble?"

"Claire?" Toby spun his desk chair around to face Wirt, who was sitting on his bed. "She's always in trouble. Mostly because she's helping other people out of it."

"No, the other one. Jim. I heard you guys talk about him, and you sounded worried."

Toby blew out a breath. "That's complicated. Claire's going to keep me posted. Right now, it's nothing you need to worry about."

Wirt smirked. "So not the start of the apocalypse?"

"Not yet, anyway."

"Great. Means I can actually focus on my last couple of midterms." He knew Toby's were over—at least, his first round was; he had a few classes that had two midterms—which was probably the only reason he'd survived Claire's visit when most others were studying.

It was funny, though. He'd have figured, if Claire's college did have a reading week in the fall, that it would be _after_ midterms, but this was the middle of October. It was prime midterm season.

"Hey, uh, where's Claire study, anyway? I don't remember."

"She's in New Jersey. Small place. You won't have heard of it. I never had."

"You sure?"

"Definitely."

"Try me."

Toby rolled his eyes. "Heartstone. Happy? Anyway, since you apparently don't acknowledge your text messages, Wendy said to give you a heads up that she's got a couple friends coming to town for a few days, too. High schoolers scouting out potential colleges, including our stomping ground. She wants to know if we can meet them for supper at some point."

Toby was right—he _hadn't_ heard of Heartstone—but the subject change gave Wirt pause. Toby was usually happy to talk about his other friends. Honestly, he was usually happy to talk about anything. Especially when it was an excuse to procrastinate on his homework.

Wirt decided to ignore it for now and gave a shrug. "Any day should work for me. Next week's pretty open. Mostly just writing papers."

"Awesome. It should be good. From what she tells me about them, you'll love them."

"I'm sure I will."

* * *

The Pines twins didn't fit Wirt's idea of normal, either. He was beginning to doubt that anyone his roommate (or his friends) knew ever would. It wasn't Mabel's love of homemade sweaters or the way Dipper almost _immediately_ asked him about the Unknown (why had Wendy told him about an old assignment, anyway?) when they met up at the restaurant just off campus. It wasn't the way they sometimes finished each other's sentences, either, because judging by their grins, they were hamming it up for his and Toby's sake. It was more….

Well, it was the fact that when the subject somehow turned to cryptozoology, they knew _a lot_.

Even Toby looked surprised, though in all fairness, he looked happy about it. And some of his questions were…oddly specific. The twins looked delighted. Wendy was just smirking as if this was going exactly as she'd expected.

Wirt had hoped the conversation would change when Jazz joined them for dessert, but it just made things worse. She wasn't so much skeptical of their stories as she was analytical. Like she wanted to learn as much as possible even though none of it was real. She kept asking questions. And no matter what she asked, they had answers—Dipper especially.

Wendy had given him a playful nudge when she'd finally interrupted to bring up demons. Dipper's face darkened, like he wished she'd left well enough alone, but he and Mabel were able to spin yet another tale. Jazz looked delighted. Wirt couldn't remember if she'd brought up alternate dimensions or if it had been Toby, but that had easily been a half hour tangent. Wirt had no idea how they came up with these things. Sure, the Unknown had been real, or at least as real as it could be, but it's not like pocket dimensions or doors to other worlds existed all over the place. The twins' stories were obviously fabrications even if they purposefully didn't frame them like that, and Toby and Jazz and Wendy loved playing along—to the point that they'd keep asking his opinion on things even when he didn't try to join the conversation.

But seriously. If gnomes were actually real, they wouldn't vomit _rainbows_. That just…. It didn't make sense. Rainbows were just light broken into the visible spectrum. If that light had no reason to refract and disperse in the first place—

He was thinking too much about this.

Just like he had about things in the Unknown.

At least these things were just stories.

* * *

Wirt found the sheets detailing exorcisms—both ghostly and demonic—mixed in with his schoolwork that night. He didn't recognize the handwriting— _any_ of the handwriting, since it looked to be done by three different people—but the top piece of paper was addressed to him. _Wirt, hope this helps_. It was in the same hand as the majority of the notes.

Dipper's, maybe. He'd talked more details than Mabel. And Wendy could've easily slipped the papers into his room since she had a key. He wasn't sure about the third hand. Mabel had mentioned their grunkles, but he'd gotten the impression they were travelling somewhere. But considering the tiny, careful details that supplemented the first set of notes on the ghost section….

Was this why Jazz had had weapons?

Was it actually possible that Wendy had managed to wind up rooming with someone as crazy as she was in her own way? Someone who believed whatever story Wendy had fed her and didn't find it weird to be asked to write up what was very likely pseudoscience at best? He'd thought Jazz's major was something like psychology, but maybe….

Wirt flipped through the pages. One of them was definitely written mostly in Latin. Another was covered in a language he didn't recognize at all, which is probably why the phonetic pronunciation was written in brackets behind every sentence. Another was English but filled with words he didn't know.

He wondered what the heck he'd gotten himself into.

Maybe he should transfer somewhere else. Or at least put in for a different roommate for next term. Distance would help, would it?

Except, insane as it sounded, insane as the situation was, it seemed like his friends were just trying to help him. Maybe Wendy really had realized the truth of what he'd written up for his English assignment. Maybe _that's_ why she wouldn't let him get away with waving it off.

But if she didn't just believe it was real because she apparently seemed to believe everything like it was real, what was her story? And Toby's, since he was the same way? Claire's? Mabel and Dipper's? Even Jazz's?

"They have to have just been telling stories," Wirt said aloud.

But Toby wasn't around to reassure him, and he couldn't quite convince himself.

* * *

It was past midnight some weeks later when Wirt saw the…creature.

He woke shivering, pulling the blankets around him, and then he realized that the draft from the window above his bed was stronger than usual. It wasn't whistling like it did when the wind was from the north, and it wasn't like Toby to accidentally leave it open.

He was about to sit up to double check when something moved, momentarily blocking the light as it squeezed inside.

Wirt was too terrified to breathe. He knew it couldn't be the Beast; if nothing else, it was far too small to be the Beast if it could fit through the window so easily. It could have torn through the screen, but he hadn't heard breaking glass. It must be dexterous enough to have pried the window open.

It was too dark to make out details when the thing moved so fast. It was small. Dark and muddied in the dim light—green, maybe, or blue or brown or even grey—but either with distinct markings or wearing something a little bit lighter, too. Whatever it was, it scampered across the wall on all fours, not seeming to see him. At least, if it did, and if it noticed he was awake, it didn't do anything. It just dropped something on Toby's bed, on the pillow he hadn't drooled all over, and then let out something that was either an honest-to-goodness _laugh_ or a freaky, growling call. It dropped the floor between their beds but was gone when Wirt blinked again, before he ever got a better look at it.

The light was blocked off again.

He heard a snap.

Then a creak.

Then the light was back, illuminating what might be…paper? A note? If it hadn't still been on Toby's pillow, Wirt would have thought it was a dream.

That morning, Wirt pretended not to see Toby scoop up the crumpled note without a word. Toby didn't read it, didn't even acknowledge its existence, and Wirt wondered if this had happened before. If he'd just never noticed until now.

If this wasn't the first time, what _else_ had he never noticed before?

When Toby headed off to class, Wirt stayed behind. He was supposed to be in English right now, but he couldn't….

That wasn't important right now.

One missed class wouldn't ruin his grade.

Whatever this was, on the other hand….

The screen on the window hadn't been torn; the frame was a little bent, but it was hardly noticeable. There were no telltale gouges or anything of the sort. The window, as per usual, didn't _quite_ close, but honestly, Wirt couldn't remember if it ever had. Now, he was left wondering if this was why.

Wirt pulled down one of the notebooks from the shelf mounted above his desk, pulled out the loose-leaf sheets he'd stuffed inside, took a closer look at the notes on exorcisms he hadn't thrown out like he should have.


	2. Chapter 2

Wirt spent almost every free moment he had in the library.

In hindsight, it was rather inevitable that he'd run into Wendy's roommate.

She found him first, sliding into a seat across from him and quietly clearing her throat. When he looked up, she pointed at the text he was reading. "That one's hardly a reliable source," she said.

He forced a laugh. "It's paranormal science. Nothing's going to be a reliable source."

Her features lost their hint of a smile, falling into a tight frown. "That one's pseudoscience, not science. If you've seen something—"

"I never said I saw anything!"

She raised her eyebrows, purposefully darting her eyes around. He didn't need to turn his head to know people were staring. This was the fifth floor. It had the most uncomfortable chairs. People didn't tend to stick around and chat here; the lower floors were more popular for group projects that slid into conversational procrastination. Usually, ringing (or buzzing or dinging) phones or sneezes were the only things heard above murmured conversation, the hum of laptops, and rustling paper.

He sunk into his seat and lowered his voice. "Look, this is just for an assignment. It's not whatever you're thinking."

"You can talk to me, you know. I won't think you're crazy."

Didn't mean he didn't think _she_ was crazy.

"Hey." She waited until he met her eyes before continuing, "I've seen things that most people wouldn't believe are real. And, no, it wasn't just a one-off thing or something I ate. So if you need someone to talk to who won't judge you, I'm all ears."

"Thanks, but there's nothing to talk about." Wirt gathered up his books, ignored the hurt look on Jazz's face, and hoped it wasn't too obvious that he was running away.

* * *

When Toby tossed a new pair of socks onto his bed when Wirt was trying to finish his paper on Machiavelli, Wirt just looked over at Toby. He didn't even need to move the socks from the book they'd landed on; Toby knew the question for what it was. "I think I lost a pair last time I did the laundry," he said. "Figured I should repay you."

They weren't pink and fuzzy, so it wasn't payback for something he couldn't remember doing. It was true that Wirt hadn't been able to find a few of his socks, but he'd assumed they'd just gotten shoved under something and would turn up eventually.

Sure, they hadn't magically reappeared after yesterday when it had been his turn to do their laundry (they'd started taking turns because neither of them particularly liked scrounging for quarters or hauling everything to the machines), but he'd just kinda thought that he'd…missed them. He was missing a few singles, not a pair, so it had seemed more likely.

"Nana wouldn't let me live it down otherwise," Toby added.

"Uh, right." Wirt could believe that. Toby's Nana seemed big on doing the right thing, even if he wasn't wholly convinced she always knew what the right thing was. At least, he was thankful for the cookies she'd sent them. The clean underwear 'in case they got hit by a bus or into worse trouble' had been a little more…questionable. "Thanks."

"Oh, and Wendy says to stop avoiding her and ignoring her texts. She needs to talk to you."

"I'm not avoiding her!"

Toby snorted. "I might've believed that if you'd come back with 'about what?', but whatever. She mentioned something about her roommate. Maybe that's why."

"Her roommate is nuts," Wirt muttered, not caring about being charitable right now. It was…rough. Every assignment in class seemed to be due at all once, and he had trouble focusing on any of them with this…this…whatever it was hanging over his head.

He had seen something.

He was _pretty_ sure it wasn't something related to the Unknown, but that was only because he hadn't recognized it. And because he was also pretty sure it was something Toby was involved in, and Toby….

Toby was weird, and the Unknown had been weird, but this felt…different.

Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions, though. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for what he'd seen. Maybe it _had_ been a dream, and the paper had just been Toby's study notes. It wouldn't be the first time he'd fallen asleep reading them. Or maybe it did have something to do with the Unknown after all. Somehow. He'd had nothing to do with it for years. Maybe he'd managed to forget what it felt like. He still had the journal with him where he'd written the entire experience down and had actually reread it in preparation for that creative writing assignment, but he'd never found the right words to recreate the feeling the Unknown had given him. Not really.

But…but if it did have something to do with the Unknown, why nothing until now?

Maybe Toby wasn't even the target. Maybe things were just…reaching out. For him.

Or maybe Toby had ended up in the Unknown once, too, and managed to escape?

No, he couldn't have. He would have said something. Probably. Because he had to know it was far too unlikely that Wirt could just pull all that out of his hat if he'd been through a very similar experience.

But if it wasn't the Unknown, what else was there?

…Maybe he really had seen an animal? Just a trained one? There could have been someone outside the window to remove the screen and send in…whatever it had been. A racoon with weird colouration? Or something else that could climb like that? And be trained to carry messages?

Maybe it was a robot. Just…a quiet robot. With random sounds programmed into it so no one got close enough to figure out what it was when it was sent out.

Or maybe Toby had another friend who was so good at that kind of thing that they were working on artificial intelligence and this entire thing was just a series of test runs.

Given the friends of Toby's that Wirt had met, he was not about to rule out that possibility. Heck, for all he knew, it could be Jazz. She apparently had weapons stashed all over the place. Maybe she had advanced tech, too. That Wendy had found, since Jazz apparently couldn't hide stuff from her. Wendy could have commandeered something and was using it to send messages to Toby in the middle of the night. Just because she could. He wouldn't put that past her, either.

Toby snorted. "I don't think Wendy would argue with you there. She still can't believe Jazz practically lives in the library. But seriously. Talk to her. Or just go over there. She got out of class at four. She should be back by now. You don't even have to text or call first."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to finish this." Wirt made a vague gesture towards the laptop and the mess of books that had overtaken his bed.

"You've been working on it since before I got back from my lab. Take a break."

"I don't have time for a break!"

"You'll be more productive if you take one. Isn't that what they say?"

Wirt rolled his eyes. "A five minute break and a fifteen minute walk to Wendy's are very different things. Especially when you factor in a conversation and the walk back."

"You still need a break. And the walk will do you good."

Wirt argued.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised he lost.

* * *

"About time," Wendy said, stepping back to let him in. She and Jazz were renting a tiny, two-bedroom apartment just off campus. It was cheap and showed its age, all chipped paint, worn carpet, creaking floors, and a musty smell that wasn't _quite_ overwhelmed by the fumes from the fast-food joint next door. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, and if they wanted to be close enough to walk to campus, they'd have had limited options. Given the convenience, Wirt didn't want to know how much the two of them had to cough up for rent each month.

"Um…."

"It wouldn't kill you to reply to your text messages, you know."

"I was…busy."

"And avoiding me."

"And me," Jazz piped up as she walked out to join them in the tiny entryway. "What do you want to drink, Wirt?"

"Uh…."

"I'll get you some water." She disappeared back the way she'd come, presumably to the kitchen. Wirt slid off his shoes and shrugged off his coat, which Wendy hung in the closet.

Two steps took him to the entryway of the kitchen, and if he didn't turn, he'd head straight for the living room. He hesitated until Wendy pushed him gently from behind, prodding him forward. "Comfy chairs," she said.

The chairs would feel more comfortable if he wasn't walking into an interrogation. Jazz fished out a coaster from beneath a psychology text book and set a glass of water down on it beside him, and she sat in the chair on the other side of the end table. Wendy snagged a rolling chair from a desk, wheeling it over to join them. Neither of the girls spoke.

"Um. I wasn't, uh, avoiding you guys."

Jazz's eyebrows shot up. "Weren't you? Really, Wirt, you can tell me. I grew up in Amity Park. I _have_ seen unbelievable."

That might be so, but he'd never heard of Amity Park.

Wendy stretched, cracking her knuckles. "Gravity Falls isn't without its stories, either."

He stared at them. "Wait. This isn't _still_ about that story I wrote about the Unknown, is it?"

"I don't know, is it?" Jazz asked, turning the question back on him. "I rather thought it was about whatever you were researching in the library. Clearly, though, if the Unknown is involved—"

Why had he ever opened his mouth? He _knew_ what her major was. "It's not." That was unconvincing even to his own ears.

"But you brought it up."

"She mentioned stories!" He pointed at Wendy, desperate for an out. She was just smirking and enjoying the show.

"But you immediately thought of the Unknown."

Wirt was pretty sure Jazz had handed him the shovel and he was halfway into digging his own grave. "Because _someone_ would never let that drop. A couple someones, actually."

"So Wendy and Toby have mentioned it recently?"

"Well, yeah." Wirt stopped.

Thought about it for a moment.

They hadn't.

Not for a couple of weeks, at the very least. He wasn't even sure he'd heard them harp on about it since he'd seen the whatever-it-was. He hadn't been spending a lot of time with either of them, too focused on figuring out what the heck he'd seen and not failing his classes in the meantime.

And from the look on Jazz's face, she knew that perfectly well.

"Okay, so maybe not," amended Wirt, even though he knew he was well past six feet under, "but it's definitely been too often for something that should have been forgotten. Seriously. It was just a creative writing assignment. No one's made a big deal about any of the others."

"Maybe the others had a different sort of truth to them than this one did."

Wirt frowned. "Wait, you haven't read it, have you?" She shouldn't have. He'd never shown her. But he didn't trust Wendy.

"I know enough about it," Jazz said, which wasn't really an answer because she could _know enough_ about it if Wendy had told her or if Wendy—or, heck, maybe even Toby—had broken into his laptop and emailed her the file or copied it to a flash drive or something.

"It's. Just. A. Story." He was tired of repeating himself.

"You don't have to talk about it," Jazz said, leaning back in her chair. Wirt blinked. "How about I tell you a story, though?"

"Wait, what?"

"Can I tell you a story?"

He didn't have time for this. That essay wasn't going to finish itself. But…. "Like, a story story or—?"

Jazz smiled. "A ghost story."

He couldn't tell if she was kidding. A quick glance at Wendy confirmed she hadn't expected this, either. Still, she looked…interested, leaning forward and finally focusing on Jazz instead of him.

"Amity Park has its share of ghost stories," Jazz added when he didn't stop her.

He still couldn't tell if she was joking or not. Was she just making stuff up to try to get him to talk? He hadn't framed the Unknown as a ghost story for his assignment, but in hindsight it could've been read like that. And she _had_ caught him looking up different types of ghosts….

"They say the veil is thin there," Jazz said, a quirk about her lips hinting at some inside joke. Wendy didn't seem to get it, either. Frankly, Wirt was surprised she didn't know the whole story already. He'd kinda figured she'd have gotten it out of Jazz by now—especially if she'd found Jazz's hidden weapons in less than a week.

…Was this why Jazz had weapons in the first place?

"Natural portals are abundant. Not between this world and the next, but between our world and the Ghost Zone, the realm where ghosts dwell—the ones not trapped on our plane of existence, anyway. One day, a pair of well-meaning scientists decided to set up shop and tear through the veil to create a doorway so that they could better study the world of ghosts. It wasn't until after they'd succeeded that they realized the dangers of the other side."

A ghost zone? Why not just call it the afterlife? Wirt opened his mouth, but Jazz held up a hand to silence him. "The people of the town adapted and even grew to accept the daily disruptions of ghost attacks."

 _Daily_? She was definitely making this up. He just had no idea why.

"But then one day, the Fright Knight arrived, heralding the return of his king and issuing a royal decree. Some of the people tried to fight back, and the entire town was punished for their efforts, completely subsumed by the Ghost Zone. The scientists were able to erect a protective barrier with the help of others, but they could not reverse the town's transportation. They had been taken to another realm, and the town could not be restored by ordinary human means. Not alone."

"Wait. You're telling me an entire town got sucked into a different world?" Even for a story, it was a stretch. She had to know how that sounded. One or two people, even a larger group, sure. Fine. But an entire town? "I thought you were a psych major, not creative writing." Although maybe this was why she wasn't in creative writing. She had the basics down, but she went a little too far, even for the whole suspension of belief thing. The best ghost stories were the ones that could feasibly happen, that couldn't quite be explained away by logic or circumstance.

Now, what had happened to him and Greg? Okay, so maybe it didn't sound _feasible_ to someone who thought it was just a story, but it had only been them, not everyone else who'd been in the graveyard. And the struggle of two people surviving a place like the Unknown made for a better story than an entire group who brought various eclectic skills to the table. Stories were better when there was a sense of risk, not a certainty of eventual triumph.

Sure, the fact the town couldn't be restored 'by ordinary human means alone' or whatever was probably meant to build suspense, but she wasn't—

"Trust me, she's a psych major," Wendy said. "Now stop interrupting. Was there some kind of prophecy? There must have been if you couldn't just fight your way out, right?"

Why…why was Wendy talking like this was something that had really happened to Jazz? Like it was a normal thing? Like she'd gone through something similar where there _had_ been a prophecy, and it had been important, since without it, she—and whoever else—couldn't fight her way out? Jazz had straight up said it was a ghost story.

Her names could use work—Ghost Zone? Fright Knight?—but then again, they might not be her names. If she wasn't making this up, if she had heard the story as a kid or at summer camp or something, then it would be easier to keep the names the same rather than change them and forget what she'd called things mid-story.

He wasn't convinced she wasn't trying to make some point with this, though. When Wendy had read his story, she'd wondered if he'd been talking about death. About the afterlife. He couldn't blame her, given that he'd still called it the Unknown, but—

"To start everything," Jazz allowed. "Prophesized power begins this story, really. Greed for it awakened the king from his slumber in the first place."

Okay, so probably not making it up on the spot unless she was _really_ good at that kind of thing. He didn't know her well enough to tell. He couldn't think on his feet half as well as Greg, but it was a good skill to have, and if she was planning on being a psychologist, it would make sense that she could adapt to whatever was thrown at her better than other people.

"But the prophecy didn't end it? Didn't hint at a way to defeat the king?"

"Only what must be done was known, not how it would be accomplished."

"Well, teamwork, obviously," Wirt said. That's how these things went. Especially when there was a townful of people to help.

"More calling truces, uniting foes against a common enemy, and fighting for survival and a way of life as much as for friends and family, but yes. Teamwork. Pariah Dark could never have been defeated by any one person alone, nor even by a small group."

Maybe this was some old camp story and she'd just changed it to a town from a bunch of campers to make that fact less obvious. It had a moral to it and everything. Work together, help each other out. Maybe even unite against an opposing cabin despite initial opposition within. Jazz might've spent a summer as a counsellor somewhere. It would've given her an opportunity to work with kids from various backgrounds, which would stand up as good experience when she got to job hunting.

And it would explain why she seemed to know this story so well.

"But sometimes it's a small group or one person who makes all the difference in the world," Wendy said softly. "When it comes down to the wire and greater risks need to be taken. Sometimes, only one person can choose to make that sacrifice, even when others want to help."

Jazz raised her eyebrows, and Wendy's defensive barrier immediately fell back into place as she sat up. "What? Wirt's the only one allowed to predict how this went down?"

Seriously, why was she saying that like it had happened?

"Of course not," Jazz said. "I just…hadn't realized."

Hadn't realized what?

"Anyway, keep going."

No. Wait. Hadn't realized _what_? What was he missing?

"It's like you said. They came together, friend and foe alike, and helped turn the tide. There was even one who sacrificed more than the rest, and, really, it is that smaller group you mentioned that ensured he didn't lose everything in the process." Jazz shrugged. "But it's just a story."

"But…." No. She wanted him to ask. She must. That's why she'd cut things off so abruptly. If he asked, he'd be playing right into whatever trap she'd set. Because there had to be something. He'd walked into enough of them already to know that.

Maybe Wendy didn't believe this as much as she seemed to and was just playing off Jazz. To get to him. And get him to…something. He wasn't even sure. What did they want, for him to admit that the Unknown wasn't just a story? Why? So they could laugh at him for believing such a thing? That didn't make sense. They weren't cruel.

So what were they really after?

Wirt suddenly realized Jazz and Wendy were staring at him, waiting for him to continue. He swallowed. "Um, I mean, stories, ah, sometimes have a bit of truth in them, and…." And something. He didn't know where he'd been going with that. Nowhere, probably.

Jazz smiled. "Exactly."

Wait.

"What's the truth in your story, Wirt?"

He'd walked right into that, hadn't he?

Maybe he could still pull this off and convince them to drop it for good. "That I had fun imagining it?" he offered. He needed them to believe him when he said it was just a story.

"Ideas come from somewhere," Wendy pointed out.

Of course she wouldn't drop it. That would be too easy. "Yeah, a dream, but who knows before that. I just remembered some of what I'd been dreaming about and made up what I didn't."

For a split second, identical expressions of fear passed over the girls' faces.

And then they both managed to school their expressions into a more normal response, mainly boredom (Wendy) and allowance (Jazz).

He had no idea what they'd been thinking.

He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

He had a feeling he'd find out eventually, though. One way or another. He just wished he knew now whether or not they were in this together. They probably were—Jazz was still more acquaintance than friend in his book, since he didn't know her that well, despite whatever this was—but if they were, why hadn't Jazz filled Wendy in on her plan? And if they weren't, why would Jazz bother with any of this in the first place?

This didn't make sense.

Wirt drained half his water, just so he didn't have to fill the silence, but that only gave Jazz the opportunity to ask, "Do you dream like that often?"

"What?" It was a weird question. "You mean like where I remember it, right? Aren't we supposed to dream every night even if we don't remember them?"

Jazz just smiled.

"Well…no? I don't usually remember my dreams. I guess I just woke up at the right time with this one."

They looked relieved.

Why did they both look relieved?

"Do you ever have lucid dreams?" pressed Jazz. "Where you're aware that you're dreaming and can take control of it?"

He had no idea where this line of questioning was supposed to be going. "No. I mean, _maybe_ once, just kinda steering away from a nightmare if that counts, but I don't know for sure. Nothing that I really remember."

"How often do you have nightmares?"

That one came from Wendy, and it was seemed to add credence to the idea that they were working together after all. "Not really often? I don't remember the last one I had." Because he was certain that he'd really seen something, that it hadn't just been a nightmare. It couldn't have been. Not when the note had been there the next morning. "C'mon, guys, what's this about? You have to know how weird all this sounds."

"This is your standard for weird, then," Jazz said, as if that clarified something.

"Well, yeah? It would be anyone's standard, wouldn't it?"

Wendy glanced at Jazz. "Kinda makes him seem sweet and innocent for thinking that, doesn't it?"

Okay, that confirmed it. They were in this together. And trolling him. They _had_ to be.

Wirt got to his feet. "Look, this has been…fun, I guess, but I really need to finish my essay. Are you satisfied that I'm not avoiding you now?"

"Answer your text messages like the normal person you claim to be," Wendy shot back, "and then I'll believe that."

Wirt rolled his eyes. "Fine, but don't expect instant responses. Like I said, I'm busy."

"Aren't we all?" Jazz was smiling again as she rose to join him, but he couldn't see falsehood hidden behind it. Maybe she was just a genuinely cheerful person. Or, more likely, she was deeply amused by his reaction to all of this. "Thanks, Wirt. You've been a great help."

A great help for _what_?

"A good sport," Wendy agreed. She didn't move from her chair. "Don't be a stranger, Wirt. You and Toby can come over for supper on the weekend if you want. I'm teaching Jazz to cook, but I promise she's past the point of accidentally poisoning you."

"I'm not _that_ bad."

Wendy snorted. "You ate raw pierogies and then asked me if they were supposed to be that hard."

"That was _one time_."

"Yeah? Well, just because you cut the mouldy part off the tomatoes—or anything else—it doesn't mean the rest is fine."

"Um. I think I'll pass on your home cooking," Wirt said, overriding Jazz's mutters about not being used to food lasting long enough to spoil like that. "I'm on the meal plan anyway, just like everyone else in res."

"Like that's any better. I may not eat there, but I've heard stories."

"It's better than your food was at the beginning of the year," Wendy pointed out. "And don't even get me started on your scavenging skills. If you were left on your own in the woods, you'd eat something poisonous the minute you started looking for food."

Jazz frowned but didn't deny it, which probably meant her scavenging skills were on par with his. "Just face it, Wendy. We're not all going to survive the apocalypse," joked Wirt.

She glared at him. "At least Jazz can hit a target."

"That took me a while," allowed Jazz, "but ghost hunting pays off."

No. She was kidding. He knew that. He'd started it. He'd opened the door with the apocalypse quip. Of course she'd walked through it. She was friends with Wendy. Roommates. Which had to rub off. That comment had nothing to do with her old campfire story.

…Right?


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Happy birthday to the person who encouraged me to write this fic in the first place.

* * *

Wirt got the email from Jazz the next day. He didn't realize it wasn't just spam at first—all it contained was a link, no subject or explanation—but then he noticed it was a link to a news site, and it didn't take him long to figure out that it was a _real_ news site, so he went to the story she'd sent.

Action News, Channel 4. Tiffany Snow. Lance Thunder. And…a town that had disappeared.

"Whatcha reading?" Toby asked as he entered their room.

"Nothing," Wirt muttered, but he didn't manage to close the link fast enough. Toby was already looking over his shoulder.

"Ghosts, huh? I guess that makes sense."

"What?" Wirt twisted to look at Toby, who'd dumped his backpack onto his bed and dropped down beside it.

"Ghosts. I mean, there are enough stories about them, right? Some of them have to be true. And they had to come from somewhere."

Wirt had been halfway through the story when Toby had come in; there was no way he knew the story had been about Amity Park. About Jazz's experiences. So maybe he just thought Wirt was some kind of closet conspiracy theorist and _ghosts_ were the proposed answer to some mysterious 'missing town' story.

But even if he did, he was taking it…rather calmly.

"Yeah." Wirt's voice was too high. "Crazy, right?"

Toby snorted. "I wouldn't call ghosts crazy."

…or maybe Toby was the person who secretly believed in every single cryptid.

Well, that was a bit unfair. Ghosts weren't exactly _out there_. They weren't on par with some alternate dimension. Well, except for the fact that they lived in this Ghost Zone place, which was apparently real. Somehow. Despite everything he'd ever heard about the 'other side'. Maybe it was another name for the place beyond the veil or something like that? The veil being reality, not just life?

Wirt let out a slow breath. He needed to stop jumping to conclusions. "Why's that?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't care if Toby bothered to answer or not.

Toby's smirk told him he'd failed miserably on that front, but the other boy answered, "Think about it. People die, and it's nice to think something happens afterwards, even if it's that. Besides, ghost stories aren't exactly limited to one area of the world. And just because you haven't seen one personally, doesn't mean they aren't real."

"So you believe in ghosts?"

"I believe in a lot of things," Toby admitted. "High school was kinda crazy. Coming to uni was actually a break I didn't know I needed."

Wirt stared at him. He didn't know if he should ask. Did Toby mean _crazy_ as in _I saw a ghost_ crazy or _crazy_ as in _the crowd I hung out with was wild and the little I actually remember of high school is crazy_? Except Wirt hadn't noticed any terribly questionable habits of Toby's, barring his odd enthusiasm and surprising skill for Wendy's apocalypse training, and he'd never found or smelled anything suspicious on him, and—

"What, can you honestly tell me you had a normal high school experience?" Toby asked, raising his eyebrows.

Wirt winced.

Multi-dimensional travel, if that's even what the Unknown was, didn't fall under _normal_. But it had been one time, and—

"Look, Wirt, I'll be straight with you." Toby leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands . "I've seen things you wouldn't believe, and that's why I don't think your little Unknown story is just a story. Can you honestly tell me it is?"

Jazz was right; Toby hadn't brought up the Unknown in months. And now Wirt wasn't entirely sure if he was doing so now because Wendy had filled him in on yesterday's conversation.

"Um." He didn't know how to get out of this, but he was definitely willing to try. "Do you even hear yourself right now?"

Toby looked disappointed, but all he said was, "I've got an hour before bio starts. We should work on your aim."

"In case the apocalypse hits before supper?" Wirt joked, grateful Toby had let the subject drop.

"So you can be confident in your skills for when you need them," Toby said, reaching over to his desk where he kept the darts. "Come on; you get first shot at the bad guy." He nodded at the target on the back of their door.

Wirt took the offer for what it was, and he didn't protest Toby's impromptu decision to play, even though he still questioned Toby's reasons.

* * *

Toby was asleep when Wirt finally thought to look up different universities and colleges in New Jersey, and he pulled out his laptop to do that as quietly as he could. He couldn't remember where exactly Toby had said Claire went, but he was confident he'd know it when he found it. He remembered that it had started with an H, and—

He found a list of universities and colleges in New Jersey. Hackensack, Hackettstown, Hillside, Hoboken, Howell….. It wasn't any of those places. And nothing else in the list sounded remotely familiar, either. But he _knew_ Toby had said New Jersey. Why would he lie about something like that?

Wirt spent the rest of the night alternating between looking up the towns and names of post-secondary education in different states and reading through the news archives for Amity Park's local station.

He never found anything regarding Claire's whereabouts, and every story he read about Amity Park made him wonder if he was really on some joke website, something that took the ridiculous and framed it as real. There seemed to be no outside references to the apparent constant haunting of Amity Park, but there also seemed to be very little outside references to Amity Park in general.

It was like someone didn't want others to find out the truth about Amity Park, and whoever they were, they figured the local news was ridiculous enough to be dismissed.

Wirt looked it up, just to be safe.

Amity Park was a real place, but all he found out about it was that it was apparently _a nice place to live_. Which probably meant it wasn't really haunted. Right? After all, why would a ghost fight other ghosts? For territory, like some theories suggested? To be a hero, like most seemed to believe? For that matter, how could ghosts _fight_? Weren't they just…echoes of the living? Memories stuck reliving events of their lives or something like that?

Okay. So Jazz had said she hunted ghosts. And the news made it clear that the Fenton family was apparently famous in town for doing that. At least, the people Wirt assumed were Jazz's parents were apparently famous for it. Or more like infamous.

They were also the scientists in Jazz's story.

And maybe it was the fact that it was nearly four in the morning, maybe it was the fact that the news website seemed legit enough, despite the incidents being reported, but it was _really_ starting to seem like it wasn't just a story.

Especially…especially given what he'd seen. In this very room. When he most definitely had not been dreaming.

Ghost? Demon? Something he'd never heard of? Anything seemed like it was possible.

Toby had lied about Claire, after all. Wirt knew he wasn't just misremembering that.

 _I've seen things you wouldn't believe._

He'd assumed Wendy had slipped him the weird exorcism notes. Her and Jazz, since Jazz apparently knew a lot about ghosts from her parents and, well, life in Amity Park, if he was going to believe all of that. Which he might as well at this point.

Jazz had called out the books he'd been reading in the library as pseudoscience, which really meant he had no idea how much of what he'd been researching was even true. And, sure, he _did_ have another creative writing assignment coming up where he could put his research to good use, but….

But this wasn't just a story. There was more truth in this story than most. There had certainly been more truth in _Jazz's_ story than he'd expected. So maybe Toby wasn't pulling his leg about seeing things he thought Wirt wouldn't believe. If Jazz had grown up around ghosts and he'd wound up in the Unknown, maybe Toby really did have a story. Maybe even Wendy, too, based on her weird comments during Jazz's story.

And their odd shared concern over his dream excuse.

And her insistence that they all prepare for the apocalypse, though from what he knew of Wendy's family, that might just be par for the course for them anyway.

"Maybe I'll ask in the morning," Wirt murmured as he put his laptop away. "If he really is just pulling my leg, I'll find out soon enough, and the worst that'll happen is more teasing."

But a moment later, he found himself back in bed, staring up through the black at the ceiling, unable to convince himself that a little bit of teasing would be far from the worse he'd face.

* * *

Wirt slept in the next morning and was late for his first class. There was cursory evidence that Toby had tried to wake him before leaving for his own class—at least, a number of things had been thrown onto Wirt's bed at some point, and he doubted he'd brought everything over himself—but he must have been sleeping like the dead. That's what he got for spending most of the night doing research and reading ghost stories.

It wasn't worth making the fifteen minute hike across campus for the last ten minutes of class—he could check the audio recording of the lecture later against the posted notes—so Wirt just got dressed and debated the merits of having a decent breakfast this morning versus a muffin from the coffee shop by the library.

He didn't really expect his phone to start vibrating in his pocket this early in the morning—most of his friends were in class or still asleep—and he nearly didn't answer it when he didn't recognize the number, but— "Hello?"

" _Wirt? It's Jazz. I need a favour."_

Wirt blinked and vaguely remembered that Wendy had sent him a text a while ago asking if she could give his cell number to Jazz, and then another, a few hours later, that she had. Something about _needing to establish chains of contact in case the worst happens_ and whatever else. Typical Wendy stuff.

"Uh, sure."

" _You don't want to know what it is first?"_

"Should I? I mean, you wouldn't ask unless you thought I could do it, right?"

There was a snort on the other end of the line. _"Okay, because you're helping me, I won't tell Wendy you're daydreaming through her survival lessons and doing the exact opposite of what she says you're supposed to do."_

That was rather unfair. Sure, Wendy had said to always know the terms of whatever deal you're making before you make it, and to be _very_ sure who you were making it with before you agreed to anything, but this was hardly a _deal_ , and it was Jazz, and—

" _My brother informed me five minutes ago that he's flying in today. I've got an exam this afternoon, and I can't get a hold of Wendy. Do you mind just keeping Danny company until one of us gets home?"_

Wirt frowned, not sure which part of what Jazz had said was the strangest. For one, she hadn't asked him to actually pick Danny up from the airport, as he'd expected once she'd started talking. For another, he wasn't entirely sure he bought the fact that Jazz couldn't reach Wendy or didn't already know that that would be impossible, since Wendy was fairly open about all of that with her friends—again, in case the worst happened. And why would Jazz's brother want a complete stranger to _keep him company_? If it were him, he'd much rather be alone than pretend to be entertained by someone. "I don't have a key to your place," Wirt found himself saying, rather than the dozens of other things he wanted to say.

" _That's fine. Danny can get in by himself, and you don't have to stay at our place."_

"Uh—"

" _If I let Danny spend any amount of time alone in the apartment, we'll be finding the leftovers of his pranks for_ weeks _. And I'd rather not have to borrow an axe from Wendy to put a hole in the wall to get one of my textbooks. Or all of them."_

Given what Wirt had recently learned of Jazz's childhood, and the fact that he knew absolutely nothing about her brother, he couldn't be sure she was joking. Especially when he had no doubt Wendy would happen to have the perfect axe to use against a wall.

Besides, that was a much more normal reason to ask him to hang around. It also explained why she hadn't mentioned asking if he knew if Toby was free, too. Toby would just encourage practical jokes. Wirt had known Toby had a sense of humour since he'd introduced himself as a transfer student and assured Wirt that the reasons behind the transfer weren't bad and that he 'hadn't murdered any humans or anything like that'. Honestly, after that, he really shouldn't be surprised that things had gotten to where they were.

"What time is he getting in?" He didn't know why he was agreeing to this. Not that this was agreement. If he had class, Jazz would—

" _Judging by where he was when he called? Around one, which is when my exam starts."_

And Toby's lab. And his free afternoon that he usually used to catch up on stuff, whether that was schoolwork or sleep or the crazy research he'd taken to doing.

"Okay." He shouldn't be agreeing to this. Just because Jazz had given him some proof that he wasn't actually as crazy as he sometimes thought he might be—because if ghosts were real, it made the Unknown that much more real, too—it didn't mean he had to do stuff like this in return. Honour requests for weird favours. "I'll be at your place at one."

" _Maybe go for 12:30. He's getting faster. Thanks, Wirt. I owe you one."_

She hung up before he could tell her he'd still be in class at twelve thirty, meaning he also never had a chance to ask her what the heck she meant by _he's getting faster_. The speed with which Danny could set up various pranks? He couldn't think of what else she could mean.

Wirt spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to figure out how he was supposed to entertain a guy just like Jazz who loved practical jokes and had presumably grown up hunting ghosts. Well, more accurately, he spent the time trying to convince himself he couldn't text Jazz back and come up with some excuse— _I forgot I had a dentist appointment today_ —that would explain why he couldn't do this. And then he had class, two back to back, and all he had time to do was text Toby a quick update as to what he'd found himself doing before he had to run to get to Jazz's.

He'd forgotten that he'd need to be buzzed in to even get into the building, and though he felt a little silly ringing the number for Wendy and Jazz's apartment when he knew no one would be home, he did it anyway and hoped someone else would go out in the meantime so he could at least slip inside the building.

Instead, someone answered. _"Hello?"_

"Uh. Are you Danny?" Wirt knew Wendy had a lot of brothers, too, but he hadn't heard of anyone else coming to visit. And, sure, he was late, but despite what Jazz had said, he'd been pretty sure Danny wouldn't be able to get inside without help. As far as he knew, this was Jazz's first year rooming with Wendy, and he hadn't been aware that either of them trusted their neighbours enough to give them a key to their place.

" _You must be Wirt,"_ came the conclusion, and there was a buzz and a click as the door opened.

Wirt climbed the stairs slowly, still half-regretting coming and completely regretting agreeing to this.

The apartment door was cracked when he got there, and the teenager on the other side gave me a small wave. "Hey," he said. "I'm Danny."

He didn't look very much like his sister, except in more subtle ways—the same nose, the same shape of the eyes, that kind of thing. He was about Wirt's height but more gangly, like he was still growing. Probably was, really. He _looked_ young. Wirt had assumed that Danny was Jazz's older brother, since he was suddenly coming to town for a visit, but now—

"Wirt." He didn't know what else to do, so he stuck out his hand, and Danny shook it. "Um, so what brings you here now?"

Danny shrugged. "Work?" It came out like a question, which didn't help matters.

Older and looked younger or younger and just through high school or what? Wirt still couldn't tell. "Oh," was all he said. "What kind of work?"

"I do some freelancing."

Danny didn't specify what kind of freelancing—didn't seem inclined to specify—and Wirt wondered if Jazz's brother had decided to take over the family business. Or at least learn the family business. And if there were ghosts in town, since that was the family business.

He should really stop jumping to conclusions. Just because he knew Jazz (and her brother) had grown up in a haunted town, it didn't mean _everything_ had to do with the supernatural—or anything else someone might consider out of the ordinary. It didn't mean there was anything to Wendy's comments, or to Toby's oblique admissions, or to anything else that had happened. Jazz's brother, Wendy's friends, the _thing_ he'd seen in the middle of the night…. None of that had to do with him.

Given Jazz's concerns over potential pranks, and the fact that Danny had clearly beaten him to their place, Wirt thought it best to leave lest Danny continue rigging things even with a witness. It was winter, but Wirt and Danny wound up getting ice cream (since Danny hadn't wanted coffee and he was fine with the cold) while Wirt showed Danny around campus until Jazz got out of her exam. The conversation was a bit stilted at first, a polite fumbling of trying to find some common interest more for Jazz's sake than either of theirs, but eventually the awkwardness subsided and Wirt worked up the courage to ask Danny about Amity Park.

Danny didn't say anything for a few paces, instead stopping and pretending to admire the mitosis mosaic on the side of the biology building. Then, without turning to face Wirt, "It's not as bad as it used to be. The ghosts, I mean. Things have settled down, more or less, except when a tour comes by, and then I swear they know what's going on and come out just to show off."

"Come out of the Ghost Zone?" Wirt asked tentatively.

"Yeah." No denial. No surprise at the extent of his knowledge, despite the earlier ambiguity.

"And that's…normal?"

This time, Danny turned to him, a ghost of a smile on his face. "It is in Amity Park. Not so much where you're from?"

"Uh, no." But Danny had to already know that. He must have known more than Wirt's name from the get-go. Jazz was all about being prepared, if in different ways than Wendy, and she wouldn't leave her brother without easy knowledge that she could provide.

Even if that knowledge was supposed to be used to start up conversations.

Or dig for knowledge about the one thing everyone seemed to be asking him about.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Again.

Danny grinned. "Yeah, I figured. So when did Jazz spill the beans? My friends and I have a bet. She can be pretty good at keeping a secret when she wants to, but sometimes she's a worse liar than I am, and if she really wants to tell someone something, it's hard for her to last too long without at least dropping a hint."

"Uh—"

"Seriously. When did she stop trying to hide the fact that our parents are crazy ghost hunters?"

"She didn't, um, hide that, exactly," Wirt said slowly. "I'm just not, uh, her best friend, that's Wendy, and—"

"Last week? Last night? Last month? C'mon, give me something."

"She told me a ghost story yesterday," Wirt confessed, "but kinda showed her hand before that."

Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Ghost story? Which one?"

"Disappearing town."

Danny frowned. "Pariah Dark? Seriously? She might as well have gone with something about Plasmius. Talk about overly dramatic." Catching Wirt's shocked look, he added, "What? I was there, too. Don't get me wrong, it was bad, it could've been _really bad_ , but the whole thing was Plasmius's fault. Amity Park only got sucked into the Ghost Zone as a consequence of him being his usual greedy self and trying to steal Pariah Dark's power."

It was one thing to hear Jazz talk about it like it was just a story.

It was quite another to hear Danny complaining about (and blaming) someone for starting the whole mess like he'd been the one to personally clean it up.

"Trust me, Amity Park has a lot more _normal_ ghost stories. Y'know, things mysteriously disappearing, technology coming alive, people getting possessed…. The usual."

"None of that is _usual_!"

"What, you've never had a lamp in your house that would sometimes turn on for no reason?"

"No!"

"Man, you're lucky. Jazz and I had to suit up and shoot down our dinner after it got possessed. Multiple times. Even _after_ Mom and Dad stopped storing ecto-samples in the fridge."

"What?"

"Let's just say take out is a staple for me. Jazz says she knows how to cook now, but when she left, the only things she could make were cookies and fudge, and I doubt she's gone that much farther."

Danny's grin had grown.

Wirt didn't know how much, if any of that, was a lie. He knew Jazz wasn't exactly a great cook, and he knew the best lies were mixed with truth, but hunting down possessed food?

"Right," Wirt said slowly. "Maybe, um, we can just head back to my place. Toby'll still be at his lab, but he might be finished before Jazz is done with her exam—"

"Jazz is always the last person to leave a room during a test. She won't admit it, but she's paranoid that she's forgotten something if she leaves before anyone else."

"—and if nothing else, we can play darts."

Now, Danny wore a very distinct smirk. "I hear you need to work on your aim."

Wirt rolled his eyes. "I thought you hadn't met Wendy yet. Has she told everyone?"

Danny shrugged. "Jazz fills me in on important things. Besides, you can't be any worse than Jazz when she first started. I think she had worse aim than our dad. Trust me, that's saying something."

Jazz filled Danny in on important things, but not him, even when she was asking a favour of him. Then again, despite Wirt steering the conversation towards the topic earlier, he still had no real idea of what Danny was doing here, beyond the vague excuse of 'work'. Or how long he was planning to stay. Or if Jazz had really asked him to meet Danny because she wanted to see if Danny would have any luck getting him to talk about the Unknown.

Though, since Danny hadn't brought that up, maybe Jazz had mercifully left that bit out of whatever she'd considered important.

"So which way to the dorms? You're in res, right?"

"Right," Wirt mumbled, as much in agreement as because the direction they needed to go was, in fact, to their right. Danny kept pace with him easily, despite Wirt's quickened walk, and chattered on about embarrassing things Jazz had done as a child—and as a teenager—in case Wirt ever wanted to blackmail her later.

To be honest, Wirt wasn't sure he wanted to anger anyone who had connections to ghosts. If things had settled down in Amity Park, and if these ghosts could move, as his research had seemed to suggest, he didn't want to find out Jazz could cash in an old favour and get someone to haunt him.

It didn't take them long to reach the dorms, and Wirt fished out his key, needlessly saying, "It's this one," as they stopped in front of his room. A moment later, he had the door open.

And then he stopped.

And stared.

Toby wasn't at his lab. He was inside with Claire—Wirt hadn't even known she was visiting—and they were both in…armour? It _looked_ like armour, his some kind of bronze-plated getup, maybe, but hers was _purple_ , accented with black. They both wore helmets. He carried a huge hammer— _its head was practically the size of Wirt's torso_ —and she had a silver staff of some sort topped with some kind of gem (he…wasn't entirely sure it was just coloured class), and Wirt would swear something green had just winked out of existence behind them.

He really needed to get more sleep.

"Uh…."

"Costumes for drama," Toby said, his eyes momentarily flicking past Wirt to acknowledge Danny's presence behind him. "Claire had time to help me with mine."

"Right." He hadn't been aware that Toby was _in_ drama. Maybe there was a club, too, not just the class? Or maybe it was some community thing, rather than something on campus?

"We're just getting ready to show them off," Claire piped up. "Might as well model them. Come on, Toby! Nice to see you again, Wirt." She had a nod for Danny as she pushed past them, dragging Toby with her.

Wirt stared after them. Danny squeezed past him, mumbling something about using the washroom and disappearing into the three-quarter bath. The door shut behind him with a sharp click, and Claire and Toby rounded a corner and were out of sight. Wirt shut the door and sat down on the end of his bed. He didn't know why he found this weird. It was Toby. Toby seemed to be good at practically anything he tried, and making some kind of armour for drama class was weird but not exactly unheard of.

And, okay, he'd never seen a script or walked in on Toby practicing lines, but if he was just helping with props or costume design or whatever, he might not _need_ a script. Maybe. If they were assigned different ones to do.

Claire being here was…unexpected, though.

New Jersey wasn't only an hour's drive away or anything like that. Heck, it wasn't only a day's drive away. It was even longer than an hour's flight. Claire wouldn't have just popped by to help Toby make a costume, let alone as realistic a costume as that had been. There would have been some warning, some plan beyond making a costume, and—

His phone vibrated. Jazz. She was out of her exam. Danny had probably gotten the same message, but Wirt called out to him just in case.

No response.

"Danny? You, uh, okay in there?"

Again, nothing. Wirt knocked on the door and repeated Danny's name. He was still met with silence, so he tried the door. It wasn't locked, and he opened it slowly enough to give Danny plenty of time to shove it closed, but he was never met with resistance.

The washroom was empty.


	4. Chapter 4

Wirt knew Danny wasn't in the washroom, but he stepped inside and looked in every remotely feasible spot anyway, including the medicine cabinet that sat above the toilet which would be hard pressed to hold a small child.

He just…. He didn't know what else to do. There wasn't anywhere else to go. It's not like Danny could have crawled out the tiny window, and he definitely hadn't slipped past Wirt and out into the hallway. It was like he'd gotten sucked into the same black hole as most of Wirt's socks, except obviously that didn't exist, but—

Wirt pulled out his phone and started to type a message to Jazz, but how could he tell her he'd lost her brother? He certainly couldn't explain it. He had no idea where Danny was. Or how he'd gotten there, wherever there was.

Wirt half-hoped Danny would text Jazz and Jazz would text him, but he never heard anything, and he couldn't find the words to say anything about this to Jazz. He'd find Danny first. Then, if Danny hadn't already told Jazz, he could pretend this had never happened.

He could get a proper explanation from Toby after he figured out what the heck had happened to Danny.

Wirt locked the room behind him and set off at a quick walk, looking around and weaving past anyone he saw without slowing. Danny couldn't have gone _that_ far. If he had somehow slipped past him—

Maybe this was a prank. Danny liked pranks. And Jazz had as good as warned him not to leave Danny by himself.

Except Danny was gone, disappearing as easily and completely as the ghosts he had apparently grown up surrounded by, and Wirt couldn't see a sign of him _anywhere_.

He did, however, find Wendy.

Sitting cross-legged under a tree in the shade.

Apparently doing nothing except enjoying a cup of coffee.

Wirt slowed to a stop in front of her. "Hey," he said, though he already had her attention since she was looking up at him with a smile. "Have you, um, seen Jazz's brother anywhere?"

"Danny? Never met him." Wendy rose to her feet in one smooth movement. Wirt rather envied her gracefulness; he certainly couldn't do that, at least not in the shape he was in now. "Jazz has a psych exam today, though. You won't see her till it's over."

"No, I…know that. She's out now, anyway, but still busy." Probably. Maybe Danny had texted Jazz to get her to text him, and she just hadn't because she was catching up with some other friends of hers after the exam. She had to have other friends, right? They could have ambushed her right after she'd texted him and Danny. "What about Toby? Have you seen him?"

"Should I have?"

Wirt bit his lip. "I just saw him and Claire."

"Claire's visiting?"

So Wendy didn't know either. Not that that meant much. Claire's visit might've been unexpected. Or maybe Toby had told both of them and they'd been too busy to listen? He could believe that of himself more than so Wendy, who had a surprisingly good memory. At least compared to him, who was hard pressed to remember what he'd had for lunch the day before. Or what day of the week it was. Or what he'd been doing five seconds before, when things got really crazy.

Wirt just nodded. "Yeah. She came to help with costumes for Toby's play. Do you know when it is?"

Wendy raised her eyebrows. "Since when was Toby in a play?"

"He's in drama…." Wirt didn't add _isn't he?_ but he was pretty sure Wendy knew it was there.

"Uh huh." Wendy sounded like she didn't believe it, but what other explanation was there? If it was cosplay, Wirt definitely wasn't familiar with the source material, and he couldn't think of what else it could be. No one went around in a getup like that just for the heck of it. And it's not like Toby would think he needed to lie about making a cosplay for something. He already knew Wirt thought he was weird and didn't judge him for it. He thought that was funny.

For that matter, so did Wendy and Jazz.

It was one of the reasons Wirt was so convinced they were involved in some giant conspiracy to troll him. Because they'd kill themselves laughing over it. They'd find it hilarious, and they knew he'd be laughing in the end, too. Assuming he got to the end of whatever this was.

And assuming he could find Danny.

Seriously, how he could have lost Danny?

Maybe he was in on all of this, too. Maybe—

"Earth to Wirt," Wendy said, waving a hand in front of his face. "Did you hear me?"

"Um…no? Sorry."

"I wanted to know if Toby's talked to you yet."

"About what?" It couldn't be the play if Wendy hadn't heard of it.

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Please tell me you're just playing being clueless or you _will_ die if we reach an apocalyptic situation."

"Uh…pretend I was living under a rock and fill me in?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Wendy muttered. Louder, "Something's up. You know that, right?"

Was she finally admitting that they were playing a massive prank on him? _Good_. It had taken long enough. Wirt nodded, and Wendy relaxed. "Great. Then you'll understand why I'm absolutely certain that Toby's not actually in drama?"

Or not.

"Uh…."

"Seriously, this isn't a game. College might not kill you, but there's stuff out there that will if you're not careful."

The hatchet in his dorm room could technically kill him, but Wirt was pretty sure Wendy would just dismiss that if he brought it up. Or nag him about his nonexistent self-defence skills, since he hadn't signed up for a class despite her not-so-subtle suggestions.

Wirt glanced around, but no one was close enough to overhear their conversation. That was probably Wendy's plan. He met her eyes again, seeing no trace of a smile behind them. "You're my friend," she said, "and I don't want to lose you."

She might lose him as a friend if she kept on like this. He could only be expected to put up with so much, right? If she really believed this, maybe she needed to talk to someone. Someone who could actually help her. Which wouldn't be him. He had zero training in that area. He'd think Jazz would be ideal if she weren't encouraging this. Whatever this was.

"Okay, look," Wirt said, trying to get a handle on this situation again, "if you want to be serious for a moment, why don't you just tell me why you're so wrapped up in all of this? Why you think _I'm_ wrapped up in all of this?"

Anger and hurt flashed across Wendy's face before she schooled her expression again, and Wirt knew she felt that was uncalled for. "Because I'm not stupid," she said, her tone carefully even, "and because this isn't my first rodeo. And because whatever you want to pretend, that Unknown of yours isn't just a story. You wouldn't care about all of this so much if it were, and I don't need Jazz to tell me that."

"You're back on that again?"

Wendy frowned. "Fine. Keep pretending. But you can't ignore the truth forever, Wirt. You have to know that. And even if you think it's just to humour me, it'd be nice if you played along and prepared yourself for the day you can't." She pulled a small notepad out of her pocket and held it out. "Dipper transcribed some relevant spells. At least take a look at them before you throw it out."

Wirt knew better than to ask if she was kidding. He pocketed the notepad without looking at it, and Wendy turned away without saying goodbye. He felt like a fool, but what was he supposed to do with that? If she was delusional, telling her the Unknown was real wasn't going to help matters.

And if she wasn't delusional….

He didn't want to think about what it would mean if she wasn't delusional.

He didn't want to think that there might be more out there than what he'd faced in the Unknown, that that experience hadn't been a fluke, that finding out Jazz had grown up hunting ghosts wasn't going to be the strangest thing he discovered about his friends.

He didn't want to lose the control he'd have if it turned out the Unknown was only a tiny piece in everything that _was_ unknown.

And now he felt horrible for what he'd done to Wendy.

Sighing, Wirt pulled out his phone and dialled Toby's number. If he could at least find out more about this play while he looked for Danny, it would prove that the world wasn't going crazy.

* * *

Toby didn't answer.

Wirt actually walked into the drama building, poking his head into any room that didn't have an ongoing class, and found nothing. He even tried looking around education, in case the rehearsals were in that building instead, and he couldn't find so much as a poster advertising a play—or at least not one that would require fanciful armour.

Danny, of course, never turned up anywhere.

Wirt circled back and checked the food court, thinking Danny had probably found it and bought himself a snack, but no matter how he scanned the shifting crowd of people, he couldn't convince himself that Danny was there.

Why hadn't Jazz given him Danny's number? That would have made finding him so much easier. He should have asked for it, but it hadn't occurred to him that they'd get separated when he'd been asked to spend time with Danny.

Maybe this was just one of Danny's practical jokes. Jazz had said he was a joker. Wirt couldn't really think of any other way to explain his vanishing act.

Although, considering where he had disappeared from, Wirt wasn't sure even being some kind of magician-in-training would explain Danny's disappearance. It's not like he happened to be in the one dorm room that had a secret passage hidden somewhere in the bathroom. There was no trick to it. And he couldn't imagine how Danny had gotten past him, even though he must have.

Wirt couldn't remember which building Jazz's psych class was in, so he couldn't see if Danny had gone to meet her there. Not that that would help him much, since Danny and Jazz would probably be long gone if they had met up, but he was getting desperate, and Jazz hadn't texted him to ask why he'd ditched Danny—or whatever story Danny might've told her about what happened. He did check his dorm room one more time—in the vain hope that Danny would be hiding in there, maybe sitting on his bed with a big grin on his face, waiting for Wirt to come back and realize Danny had never left—and then went to Jazz's. He rang the buzzer.

" _Yes?"_

Wendy. "Um, it's me."

" _Danny's not here, Wirt. Neither is Jazz. Do you still want to come up?"_

"Uh, no, thanks." He wasn't ready to face her yet. He figured he'd read whatever Dipper counted as spells before talking to her again. Granted, knowing Wendy, she'd just do a phenomenal job of pretending the conversation had never happened, and he'd feel like even more of a fool.

" _Good luck with the search, then."_

Now he really felt like an idiot. Wirt headed back to campus, not even sure where he should look next.

He walked through the food court again, standing on his tiptoes in the hopes of spying Danny among the shifting crowd of students, and eventually gave up. He checked his watch again, his stomach churning as he realized he'd been running around for over an hour. He should just phone Jazz and tell her to phone Danny and find out where he was. He could swing by and pick him up and then meet her. And then be done with this.

Of course, that would mean admitting he'd managed to lose her brother in the first place.

Hopefully, she'd just chalk this up to Danny's love of practical jokes.

After more dithering, Wirt finally made the call. Jazz picked up on the second ring. _"Hello?"_

"Jazz, um, I'm calling instead of texting because this is kinda an emergency? I might've, uh, lost your brother, and I don't—"

She let out a sigh. _"Don't worry about it, Wirt. I'll text him my location and he'll find me. He has a bad habit of disappearing sometimes. And if he pulled this on you…. We should really talk. Meet me at the library."_

She hung up without waiting for an answer, not clarifying which library, but that was fine, because Wirt knew exactly which one she meant. And he didn't plan to blow her off after what he'd done. Should he be flattered her brother felt it appropriate to pull a disappearing act on him? Did he only do it with family friends? She'd sounded exasperated enough that it really couldn't be uncommon, but….

Jazz was at her favourite table in the library when Wirt arrived, the one off in one corner and half-hidden behind the shelves to the point that was hard to find if you didn't know it was there. He slid into the chair opposite her, and she frowned at him as her eyes flicked over him. "Do you remember everything that happened? Can you tell me?"

That was…an odd first question. But this was Jazz, and she asked weird questions. And if Wirt tried to figure out why, he'd somehow wind up in a deeper hole than whichever one he was going to dig for himself anyway, so he decided to just go with it. "Yeah? We were in my dorm room. Surprised Toby and Claire— Did you know that she was in town? Or that he's in a play?"

"My question first, please."

Wirt blinked. "Um, right. Well, we surprised them, I guess. Toby must've cut class because Claire was in town to help him with costuming, and then they went to show everyone else in the group. And then Danny, uh, said he had to use the bathroom, except he didn't come back out, and when I finally checked it, it was empty."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Of course it was," she muttered. "Because that's not at all suspicious."

"Um." She thought it was suspicious, too? What did _that_ mean? "I, uh, never saw him leave, but that doesn't mean he didn't sneak by me. I mean. He must've. Because he wasn't in there. And it's not like he could go anywhere else from the bathroom."

Jazz just nodded. "Well, I didn't know Claire was in town, or that Toby was claiming to be in a play, but I suppose I should've guessed it earlier."

"That he's secretly a drama nut and didn't want any of us to know?"

"No. That he might be the one I need to worry about more than you."

Wirt raised his eyebrows. He knew Jazz was a worrywart, but that was ridiculous. "Are you kidding? He's at least passing Wendy's weird apocalypse classes with flying colours."

"Which is what should've been my first clue."

"Clue to what?"

"That he's involved in something." The answer came from behind Wirt, and he jumped. He caught a fleeting look of Jazz's thoroughly unsurprised face as he twisted to look at Danny. How long had he been standing there? "Jazz, uh, we should talk. Not here."

"It might have to be here, Danny. Wirt's Toby's roommate."

"Uh…." Chances were Danny was right and he didn't actually need to be here for whatever the impending conversation was going to be. Chances were—

"Yeah, but does he even believe in ghosts?"

—it would just make him feel like the only sane person in the entire world. Which he knew was an exaggeration. It just felt like an appropriate exaggeration.

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?" Wirt burst out. Seriously, was Danny as crazy as Jazz? Okay, he probably was, but _still_. This obsession with ghosts was _weird_ , even considering their parents studied it. And it's not like Toby was involved with drugs or something bad. It was just a drama club or something like that. Wirt was planning on going to see the play, whenever it was, once he got the date and time and place out of Toby. To support his roommate.

He was really thinking he shouldn't ask Jazz to join him. Maybe not even Wendy.

"Shh. Library, remember?" Jazz said as Danny sat down next to Wirt.

"I hate this," Wirt muttered. He didn't mean it, but was it too much to ask to have a couple of normal friends? He had a few acquaintances from various classes, but no one he hung out with beyond Toby and Wendy and now Jazz.

…Greg was right. He really needed to get out more. He got stuck in his own little world too often to make friends easily, and he didn't want to think what it said about him if the only people you were friends with tended to be remotely like-minded. Becoming friends with Toby had been inevitable, and it was through his association with Toby that he'd wound up friends with Wendy and Jazz—almost without realizing it.

Except that Wendy really hadn't given him a choice in the matter.

And he was pretty sure he still counted it as friendship now even if their first few interactions had seemed more like he'd been coerced into it.

"That's a _no_ , isn't it?" Danny asked, looking between Wirt and Jazz. He rolled his eyes and turned back to his sister. "Why do you, of all people, think this is a good idea? You were pretty much skeptic of the year when we were growing up until I, uh, until Phantom started showing up regularly."

Jazz just crossed her arms and stared at her brother.

Wirt didn't know what that meant, but obviously Danny did. "C'mon, Jazz. He's not overshadowed. I checked. I don't think he's…involved."

Involved? In what? And what did Danny mean by _overshadowed_? How the heck did he check for that, whatever it was? _When_ did he check for that?

"And Toby?"

Jazz should not be treating this like a normal conversation. It was not a normal conversation.

Danny shook his head. "Not a ghost thing. The hammer, the armour, whatever it is. That's…something else."

"I'll have to check with Wendy and see if she knows anything about it," Jazz murmured. Wirt decided against telling her that Wendy also said she hadn't known anything about a play. Mostly because he didn't want her to phone and invite Wendy to this conversation when it would mean explaining everything to Jazz about how he'd acted and she'd psychoanalyze him or something. As if this weren't bad enough.

"But the girl—Claire, I guess—has a staff. Not like Freakshow's, so don't panic, okay?"

Wirt didn't want to ask. Well, he did, but he had a feeling he wouldn't like the answer, so he thought it best to keep his mouth shut. Why would Danny panic about the prop Claire had been holding for Toby's play? It was just a prop. And he didn't even know them.

"I caught her using it. It makes _portals_ , Jazz. Into or through the Ghost Zone. I didn't follow them because I wasn't sure I'd make it back and I still can't do that, but…." Danny shrugged. "I could check with Frostbite and Clockwork. Frostbite might have heard of it. Clockwork would know, but he might not tell me."

"Check with Dora, too, if Frostbite doesn't know anything."

Fine, now Wirt _was_ tempted to ask. "What you mean by portals?" Jazz had told him about the Ghost Zone, but a staff that was capable of making portals to the afterlife or whatever didn't make sense.

Of course, neither did the fact that an entire town had wound up there.

Wirt really wished that had been a joke newspaper, but—

"Doorways," Danny said flatly. "Holes in the fabric of reality. Exactly what you're picturing."

He shouldn't have asked.

"Um, why do you think the staff does that, exactly?"

Danny stared at him. "What part of 'I caught her using it' did you not understand? I saw it with my own eyes. She's either skipping into the Ghost Zone whenever she wants—risking Walker's wrath and whoever else's—or she's taking a shortcut through it somehow, like a condensed version of the Infi-Map that she can actually control."

Okay, he was going to pretend this conversation wasn't completely insane. "How do you know it's connected to the Ghost Zone?"

He expected one of them to say something along the lines of 'what other dimensions do you know?' or something that would make it very clear that they figured the Ghost Zone was it. Instead, Danny said, "I just know."

"That's not an answer."

"I can feel it, okay?"

He could—? "That's even less of an answer!"

"No, it's not, and keep your voice down. I am not about to be kicked out of my favourite library." Wirt groaned but held his tongue as Jazz asked, "You're sure it's the staff and not something else?"

Danny nodded as if that were the most normal question in the world. "I don't know how she got her hands on it, but yeah. If I can get some of Mom and Dad's tech to Tuck, he might even be able to make something that'll pick up on where she's been using it. We could figure this out that way."

Right. So now Danny and Jazz were completely convinced that Toby's friend Claire was some dimension hopper. Like it was normal for people to jump through dimensions.

This definitely explained why all his friends kept bringing up the Unknown. They really _didn't_ think it was just a story. But he'd sound like an idiot if he changed his story now, right? He could at least wait until they brought it up again. He didn't have to volunteer this information right away. Especially not when Jazz's brother was around—because even if he would clearly believe it, he didn't need to know everything.

"How did you get past me in the dorm?" Wirt asked.

For once, Danny looked uncomfortable. He rubbed the back of his neck and slouched. "I just sneaked out when you weren't looking," he mumbled.

"I was still standing in the hallway when you went into the bathroom," Wirt said, "and then I went into the room and closed the door and you weren't…."

"I'm…good at illusions?"

It wasn't even a good lie.

"I ducked around you when you weren't looking. I used to do it to Jazz all the time before she left for college. It's not a big deal."

Wirt expected Jazz to chime in with support, but she didn't.

He swallowed and looked at her. "The truth's gonna sound like a story, isn't it?"

"A story for another time," she said by way of agreement.

He would've preferred silence. What the heck was really going on here? What was Toby involved in? What was Danny not saying? If the Ghost Zone and the Unknown were somehow connected, and he definitely didn't know if they were, and if Claire and Toby could access it, why would they need _armour_? The Unknown might've had one room schoolhouses and paddle steamers and stuff, but it wasn't so far off their own time that anyone required _medieval armour_.

Not that Wirt actually knew if it was supposed to be medieval armour.

Not that he was completely abandoning the idea that Toby was really in a play, either. Because he certainly could be. That would make so much more sense than all of this. He couldn't believe he was going along with this. He shouldn't be. And yet even Wendy had said—

 _Something's up. You know that, right? This isn't a game._

 _You can't ignore the truth forever._

"I don't know if Wendy knows anything about Toby and Claire," Wirt said slowly, "but she definitely knows something."

This time, Jazz read something in Danny's expression that Wirt missed and shook her head. "She's not overshadowed. I'm confident in that much or I would've had you check her out, too."

Wait.

Wirt pointed at Danny. "Is that why you wanted me to babysit him?"

"You weren't babysitting," Jazz said at the same time Danny exclaimed, "I don't need a _babysitter_!"

"So you're not denying that the entire reason you wanted me to hang out with him all day was so he could check me out for whatever this overshadowing thing is?"

"Wirt—"

"What did you even _do_?"

"Library," Jazz hissed, and Wirt rolled his eyes.

"Just tell me the truth! _Then_ I'll be quiet."

"You want the truth?" Danny asked. "When you aren't even telling them the truth?"

"Seriously? Is there anyone you _haven't_ told about that stupid assignment?"

Jazz narrowed her eyes. "Yet you're the one who keeps mentioning it, Wirt. Not me."

Right. He'd walked into that, hadn't he? Fine. "You want to pretend it's not just an assignment? Then let's pretend it's not just assignment. Let's pretend it's real. I went to the Unknown with my brother. It's another dimension. I faced demons and made friends and nearly died trying to get home. Your turn."

Jazz's expression didn't change. Danny looked around, maybe to see if anyone was looking their way after his earlier outburst. Jazz's favourite little nook was fairly secluded, but there were tables nearby, equally as hidden, and the seclusion was more artificial than anything else. Still, apparently they hadn't disturbed anyone, since Danny was grinning when he faced Wirt again. "I'm the tragic victim of a lab accident," he said. "Safety wasn't exactly our parents' highest priority, but like I said, it was an accident."

Wirt raised his eyebrows. "So?"

"So that's how I got past you earlier. And that's how come I know you're not overshadowed. And that Claire's staff has ties to the Ghost Zone."

Wirt glanced at Jazz, but her face betrayed nothing. Danny was a lot easier to read. He was having fun with this. There was a definite note of sarcasm in his tone. But he also looked perfectly sincere, even though Wirt had no idea how a lab accident was supposed to explain all that. "So you, what, burned yourself on a Bunsen burner? Accidentally smashed a couple of test tubes of chemicals and stepped on the glass? And that made you the annoying prankster you clearly are?" He could think of several more choice words to call Jazz's brother, but it was safer to stick with Jazz's words. If Toby really was wrapped up in something, Wirt didn't intend to burn all his bridges before he could help his friend.

Jazz snorted.

Danny's grin widened. "Not exactly," he said.

And then he disappeared.

He just…disappeared.

Wirt was staring at him, and then he was just _gone_. He didn't move. There was no distraction to catch Wirt's attention while he ducked under the table or hid somewhere in the stacks. He was just there. And then he wasn't. And this was a bloody _library_ ; it didn't have mirrors or whatever else would've been needed to make an illusion. And Danny had pulled out the chair to sit down, so it wasn't some kind of high-tech hologram, and—

"I'll call Wendy," Jazz said, "and warn her that we're going to reconvene at our place. You can think of exactly what you're going to say as we walk over."


	5. Chapter 5

Before he'd let Jazz drag him out of the library, Wirt had swung his arm through the space where Danny had been sitting. It hadn't connected with anything, and he still wasn't sure if that was a point in favour for his sanity or not. Judging by Jazz's smirk, he wanted to say _not_ , but—

"Danny will catch up with us again," Jazz said. "It's fine. There's only so much trouble he can get into."

Wirt didn't say anything to that. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. How the heck did _lab accident_ explain _that_? If Danny could really become invisible—

Wirt stole another look at Jazz. She was too unfazed by this. Of course, from what he understood, she'd had years to get used to the idea. Weren't people getting powers from lab accidents supposed to be things confined to comic books and cartoons and stuff like that? That didn't happen in real life. Real life was burns and cuts and poisoning and dismemberment and death.

Of course, magic staffs that let you use portals to jump between places weren't exactly _real life_ either. He would've put more money on Wendy being right that the apocalypse was right around the corner than portal-jumping being a thing.

Granted, he wasn't sure how he could explain how he and Greg had gotten to and away from the Unknown without magic or portals _somehow_ being involved, somewhere, when they hadn't properly noticed it.

What the heck was Toby mixed up in? If that had been actual armour, then that had to mean—fighting? But who would he be fighting? Even if ghosts were real, Wirt was pretty sure armour wouldn't help.

He was also pretty sure Toby had been joking when he'd talked about the zombie apocalypse. It was Toby that had made that crack, right? Not Wendy? Wirt wasn't sure he remembered. He didn't think Wendy had ever specified the type of apocalypse she wanted them to prepare for, though. She just wanted them to be prepared for when it came— _when_ , not _if_.

He should have really looked into transferring rooms. The writing had been on the wall since day one. Or rather, the axe— _hatchet_ —had been on the wall. Behind the poster. And yet somehow Claire had immediately spotted it….

Definitely real armour, then. And possibly more used to fighting than even Wendy was—which was saying something, since from what he knew, Jazz was the one who'd grown up doing the fighting thing, and Wendy just thought she was decent enough to survive but had more to learn. Yeesh, no wonder Toby was so good at darts. And no wonder he'd taken to Wendy's axe-throwing lessons like a fish to water. That really hadn't been the first time he'd tried that.

Wirt shivered.

It was too late to get away from all this, and not just because Jazz had a firm grip on his hand and was practically pulling him towards her apartment now because he kept dragging his feet.

"Can't we wait here for a minute?" Wirt begged as he tried unsuccessfully to tug Jazz to a stop again. "I just need some time."

Jazz frowned but released him and let him sag against the side of the admin building. The stone behind him was cold, but he leaned into it, relishing its solidness. It was nice that some things were still normal, even with all of this.

"You do realize," Jazz said, fixing him with a thoroughly unimpressed look, "that this has been going on for months?"

"What, your brother?"

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Not Danny. You don't need to purposely misunderstand me. Or pretend to, rather. This isn't Claire's first visit, and from what Danny said, I'm guessing whatever they're wrapped up in predates that."

"Right."

She narrowed her eyes. "Just think back and see if you can come up with anything else that might help us figure this out. If this is even remotely a ghost thing, Danny will be able to help. He's got connections. And if it's not, well, I'm hoping Wendy will know something."

"She does," Wirt whispered. "She has to." Her words had been too pointed, too precise—

"What she knows might not relate." Jazz bit her lip. "Look, I'm not convinced what I know relates, so I'm hoping you two will know something. You've been friends with Toby for longer than I have, and you're stuck living with him. You must have seen something. This can't be the first time you've walked in on something or Toby's slipped up by mistake. He is not that good at this."

"Not that good at what?"

"Hiding everything. He's a worse liar than Danny. Not as bad as you, though."

" _What_?"

"Really, Wendy should be including that in her lessons. She's much better at it than any of you guys."

"How—I—what do you mean, I'm a bad liar? When have I lied to you?"

Jazz raised an eyebrow. "Really? You want to stand there and pretend you've been completely honest with me, Mr. It's-Just-A-Story?"

He glanced away and said nothing.

"Look," she said, her tone softening. "I get it. Trust me, I _really_ wanted to be the normal kid, and that never happened until I got somewhere where no one knew what the Fenton name meant. But you know what? It isn't all it's cracked up to be. I think that's why I get along so well with Wendy. She gets it."

Weird attracted weird? Is that what Jazz was saying? That he'd never have a normal life because of one crazy thing that had happened? That it hadn't been a dream, and he couldn't even go five years without getting very uncomfortable proof of that without even having to return? Greg still talked about it sometimes, but Greg—

It was different with Greg.

He'd always understood the Unknown better than Wirt had. It had been…inherent, almost. Instinct. The fact that he talked about having gone back again in his dreams— Wirt had still assumed those were dreams. Normal dreams. Greg hadn't grown out of his vivid imagination. He would _love_ everything that was happening to Wirt now. He'd find it fascinating. Exciting. Not terrifying.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Interdimensional travel didn't just _happen_. People didn't gain the ability to turn invisible from lab accidents. The apocalypse—

"Come on. No one wants to go over this more often than we have to. We might not be able to afford the time. Danny can't beg a favour from Clockwork for something like this."

She wanted Wirt to ask. He knew that. He didn't want to know, though. Clockwork. Time. More specifically, the implication of _control_ over time….

Why was it too much to ask that getting out of his hometown and going away was an escape? Wasn't it supposed to be an escape? Wasn't he supposed to be able to start fresh? Find his feet in the world? Not get dragged into craziness beyond what he'd known to be possible?

He pushed himself off the wall anyway. "I just want to help Toby." Whatever trouble he was in had to be big. Toby wouldn't have taken so many risks if it weren't, even if he had rightly suspected that Wirt hadn't been completely honest with him.

"We're going to compare information," Jazz said, "and then see if we can find him and find out if he actually needs help."

"What about in the meantime? If he's in trouble now—"

"I'm assuming that's where Danny went."

"You said he was going to catch up with us!"

"I never said it would be right away. Look, when my brother is involved, if he thinks he can help someone, he's going to help them. Especially when he needs to see if this is a ghost thing."

"Why do you keep saying that like it's important? A _ghost thing_?"

"The short answer is that's really all we Fentons know when it comes to stuff like this."

"Do I want to know what the long answer is?"

"The long answer might come up later, in our conversation with Wendy, which I don't want to be a rehash of everything we say now. Please?"

He let her take his hand and pull him along. It wasn't hard to keep up with her—his legs were longer than hers—but she walked _fast_ , faster than he'd expect for someone her height. He was actually starting to feel winded by the time they were climbing the stairs to the place she shared with Wendy.

Jazz, being Jazz, was not.

All that ghost hunting in her youth, probably.

Since that was apparently real.

How had he managed to do so much research on ghosts and not come across the Fenton family name if ghosts were such a big deal?

"Hey, Wendy," Jazz called as she let them in, "I've got Wirt. Danny'll come in a bit. We can start without him."

"Nice. I'll make popcorn."

Wirt blinked at Wendy's response before realizing he really had no right to be surprised. Wendy would no doubt find this entertaining. He, on the other hand, wasn't sure he'd be able to stomach anything, even popcorn, when there was an increasingly real possibility that all of his friends had very real, very valid reasons for acting the way they did.

When Wendy dropped a bowl of popcorn in front of him, though, he began eating automatically, even as she said, "I'm guessing you haven't looked at the spells yet."

"The what?" But he didn't need Wendy's pointed stare to remember the notebook she'd given him. He licked his fingers before patting his pocket, making sure it was still there, and giving her a wan smile. "Uh, sorry, no. Not yet."

"Spells?" Jazz asked as she joined them with drinks—alcoholic and non—arrayed on a tray that she put on the end table beside Wirt. Wendy smirked when he went for water, and by the time Jazz had wheeled over the desk chair to join them, Wendy had popped the cap off a beer.

"Beginner protection stuff, mostly," Wendy answered, passing Jazz the last bowl of popcorn. "I asked Dipper for the basics."

"I wouldn't mind looking at that myself, if he's willing to share."

Wendy's eyebrows rose a fraction. "I didn't peg you as someone who believed in magic."

"I used to not believe in ghosts. I got over that. I'm trying to get over being so closed minded about stuff like this. Besides, I've run into ghosts with magic. It shouldn't be a surprise to find it in the real world." Jazz popped a few kernels into her mouth before adding, "It's better not to deny something that might be dangerous, right, Wirt?"

Wirt knew exactly what Jazz was trying to do, and it made him wonder if he really was a lot more gullible than he'd thought. For all their denials, the way everything was suddenly falling into place for them made him wary. Jazz's brother was good at practical jokes, so maybe they'd just needed his help to pull this off. He'd only seen one trick. One trick wasn't proof unless he let it be.

But what if it wasn't a trick?

"I don't think I can do this right now," he said. He placed his popcorn bowl on the table beside his water glass. "I want to talk to Toby first."

Jazz made no effort to hide her frown. "I didn't drag you here for a talk to have you bail right away."

"Yeah, well, I didn't ask you to drag me here."

Wendy glanced at Jazz. "I thought you said he was ready for this."

"Apparently, I underestimated his stubbornness."

"No kidding."

"Oh, come on, you don't have to talk about me like I'm not even here."

"You're the one who doesn't want to be here," Jazz countered, "despite agreeing to come."

"I just…." He'd practically accused Wendy of this earlier, and that hadn't gone well. Doing it again wouldn't win him any favours. "I can't…."

"You want more proof," Jazz said. "Fine. I promise you'll get more proof once Danny is back. In the meantime, talk to us about Toby if you refuse to talk about your own experiences. What have you seen?"

What _had_ he seen? Armour. That green light. Something that moved in the dark and left notes on Toby's bed and—

"Just tell us everything," Wendy added, "even if it doesn't make sense. Even if you're not entirely sure. Even if it's weird and possibly unrelated. And try not to make assumptions about what it is if you don't know."

"Missing socks and all?" Wirt asked, hoping they'd laugh.

Neither did.

Missing socks and all, then.

* * *

Wirt was still trying to figure out if any of Wendy's so-called spells had a faint hope of being real—they all sounded like gibberish to him—when Jazz's eyes flicked to him and she said, "Took you long enough."

"What?" he asked.

"She means me."

Wirt jumped and twisted to see Danny, who was standing behind him.

Danny, who he had not seen walking into the apartment despite the fact that he had a clear view of the entire living room area and all entrances to it from the door.

Even if the whole 'lab accident gave me the ability to become invisible' thing was completely real, Wirt hadn't heard the door open. Or shut. And no one had buzzed Danny in, and he knew all the entrances to the building were—

"And, yeah, it took me a while, but I figured we were better off snooping now. And no one caught me, which means I was right." Danny walked around Wirt's chair and handed some papers to Jazz. "See if you can make heads or tails of that. I can't tell if it's a language I don't know or some kind of cipher."

"Ooh, hand that over," Wendy said, plucking the papers out of Jazz's hands. "I'm good at ciphers. Dipper's taught me a bunch of the common ones."

Wirt knew he shouldn't ask, but he did anyway. "So Dipper was interested in spies and stuff as a kid?"

"Dipper found a journal in the woods the first summer I met him," Wendy said absently, not looking up as she spread the papers across her lap, the armrests of the chair, and the end table. "By the end of it, Cipher was stone and we'd all saved the world. Wanna grab me a pen and some scrap paper, Jazz?"

 _Cipher was stone_ might as well have been the key for some kind of cipher itself as far as Wirt was concerned. Maybe there was a type of cipher called the stone cipher? Whatever the truth, the whole 'saved the world' part had to be an exaggeration. Wendy did that sometimes. And what she'd done with that answer just now had been deliberate. He didn't need to see the quirk of her lips to know that she was messing with him. It was probably her way of getting him back for how he'd behaved earlier.

Not that he could blame her.

"So Dipper and Mabel, what, came back to your hometown to visit every summer? That's when you got so good at all this?"

"Mabel was penpals with half the town anyway," Wendy said, "and Dipper wanted to practice coding messages. I wasn't going to turn down the chance to learn a valuable skill like that."

There was no point in asking why Wendy thought that would be a valuable skill, but at least she hadn't included that in her apocalypse training sessions. Of course, apocalypse prep made a lot more sense coming from her if the 'saved the world' bit _hadn't_ been an exaggeration—or at least, if she thought it hadn't been. "Are you seeing anything?"

This time, Wendy glanced at him. "In the ten seconds since I got a look at these? No." She took the pen and pad of paper from Jazz, who'd fetched them from a kitchen drawer, and started to scribble some notes.

Wirt watched Wendy frown and cross off her notes, shuffle the papers, and repeat the process several times before he realized Danny was no longer talking to Jazz and that they were in fact both looking at him. "What?"

"Jazz said you're worse than she was when we were kids," Danny said, as if that were explanation enough.

"Uh. Thanks?"

Danny snorted. "Not really a compliment. Do you seriously need more than the little show in the library and the fact that I got in here without any trouble?"

"To believe you were in a lab accident as a kid?"

"Told you," Jazz murmured, and Danny just groaned.

"Look," Danny said with a nod at the papers he'd brought, "those were hidden in Toby's mattress, and it's either coded or not in English or both. Maybe he keeps in touch with his friends in some made up childhood language, or maybe I should've taken up some of the ghosts on their offer to learn some more languages, but—"

"Ghosts offered to teach you other languages?"

"Yeah? What, you didn't seriously think they all spoke English, did you?"

Despite himself, Wirt's face burned. "That's not what I meant. I thought…. I mean…. Wouldn't there be some kind of universal language they all speak or something?"

Danny shrugged. "I haven't learned that one, either. They've just been very accommodating to me, since even my Spanish sucks. Death doesn't magically erase language barriers. Trust me, my Spanish grades would have been a _lot_ better if that magically made me understand everything."

Wait.

"Why would people being able to understand each other after they die affect you?"

Beside him, Wendy barked out a laugh, which just proved she'd been listening in. "Oh, come on. Even I've figured that one out, and I didn't get any sort of demonstration."

"Not entirely true," Jazz countered. "You know Danny can get in here without help."

"Still haven't seen it." Wendy settled back in her chair and looked up at them. "Right now doesn't count, since I was busy. And, ghost stories aside, you haven't been overly forthcoming with me either."

"You never asked."

"Didn't think I needed to."

"You want to elaborate a bit more on how you guys saved the world one summer, then?"

Wendy shrugged. "Not really relevant to Wirt's problem."

"How is _any_ of this supposed to be relevant to me?" Wirt asked. "I mean, this isn't even really my problem. You guys are the ones who—"

"You wanna help Toby, don't you?" Jazz cut in, and Wirt snapped his mouth shut. That was the crux of it. He did want to help Toby—if Toby actually needed help. Just because the girls thought he did didn't mean he actually did.

"Danny and I know ghosts, and he knows the Ghost Zone better than I do. Wendy's got access to magic spells and knowledge of ciphers—"

"That's more Dipper's territory than mine, but I'd be better than any of you in hand to hand. Even had to fight myself once."

"Clone?" asked Danny with a curious note in his voice, as if hearing that someone had to fight themselves was a perfectly normal thing.

"Shapeshifter."

He pulled a face. "Ooh, yeah, been there, done that. It's not any better."

Not any better? Why did that make it sound like he'd fought both shapeshifters and clones? _Lab accident_ couldn't account for all of that. Not just the one lab accident, anyway.

"Point is," Jazz continued, "we're bringing different skill sets to the table, however we got them. So spill, Wirt. What have you been trying to keep from us? What did you learn in the Unknown that you're afraid to show even your friends?"

"Nothing," he said. As far as he was concerned, that was true. If Greg hadn't been with him, he was pretty sure he wouldn't have found his way back home. Even trying to get the magical scissors for Beatrice had nearly backfired, and the Beast—

"Well, at least you're admitting you went there now," Wendy said. "That's a start."

Wirt blinked. "I, uh—"

"Don't try to walk it back. You already fell into Jazz's trap, and you never really fooled any of us anyway."

"It's obvious your hypothetical in the library wasn't hypothetical at all," Jazz said. "The Unknown is another dimension, isn't it? Maybe it's not like the Ghost Zone is another dimension, maybe it's more like this world—"

"—but it's definitely another dimension," Wendy finished. "And we've seen that. All of us. Toby included, from the sounds of it. I think these notes _are_ in another language, by the way. Not just some elaborate symbolic code."

"So you…." Wirt licked his lips. "You all think you've seen another dimension?"

"Seen, travelled to, almost got killed in, you name it." Danny shrugged. "It happens. Don't let Jazz fool you, though. She's only been in the Ghost Zone a handful of times, even counting the stunt the Fright Knight pulled with the town."

"And you think that's what's happening with Toby and Claire. Right now."

"Well, not the town thing, obviously," Danny said, "but that staff of hers is connected to the Ghost Zone."

Despite what Danny had said earlier, Wirt still didn't entirely understand how Danny knew that.

"Ghost Zone or not, it's at least another dimension," Wendy said. "Between what you told us and these notes Danny found, that's not a surprise. They've planned this. They know what they're doing—or think they do. Really, thinking they know what they're doing might be more dangerous, at least if they're wrong. Or making deals with any interdimensional creatures."

There was no way everyone in the room should be taking this so calmly. Wendy was basically warning them off from making a deal with the devil, literally, and hadn't blinked at Danny's implication that he was dead. Or had he just meant that he should be dead? Maybe he'd had a near death experience? How bad had that lab accident been?

"We might not need to stop them," Jazz said quietly, "but chances are very good they could use our help to do whatever they're doing. And we'll be a heck of a lot more useful to them if we're honest with each other now. So how much was really just a story, Wirt?"

Wirt swallowed.

It was getting harder and harder to tell himself that this was all some elaborate prank, a long con they'd decided to pull just for kicks. Because as ridiculous as Wendy's apocalypse training sessions were, she was undoubtedly very good at everything she was trying to teach them. From training alongside Toby, Wirt knew his roommate was scarily good at some odd things but just as pitiful as he was at others. But for someone so good at fighting, at strategizing, Toby had never told him about anything that would indicate where he'd first learned it. Video games was definitely not the answer to all of it.

Wendy had never trotted out the whole magic thing in any of their sessions, but she'd clearly consulted Dipper and Jazz when it came to exorcisms. The protective spells she'd gotten from Dipper might not have any obvious effect now, but she fully believed in them, and so did Jazz. It was just another tool to Wendy, something to use when nothing else would work.

Jazz's ghost story had never been just a ghost story, and Danny…. Danny could become invisible and get into locked rooms. Wirt had a feeling Jazz's brother wasn't just proficient at picking locks, either. Or hacking, considering some of the stuff was electronic. And the way he could move so quickly, so silently, and otherwise sneak up on Wirt when he couldn't— _shouldn't_ —have gotten inside—

Danny had said he'd been the tragic victim of a lab accident.

 _Tragic_ victim. Not just a victim. Not just _in_ a lab accident.

Wirt really had no idea anymore when he was jumping to conclusions and when it just so happened that the most insane answer was the reality.

If Toby really needed help, Wirt didn't have time to question every little thing. He knew that. That was why, more than anything else, he finally told them the whole story about the Unknown. If everything they'd told him and implied about themselves was true, then maybe they'd have a better idea of how he could help Toby than he did.

A tiny bit of it all was a sense of self-preservation, though, rather than just out of concern for Toby. Not because he feared what Toby might accidentally bring back with him, even considering the mysterious nighttime note-bringing creature. But if Toby disappeared? Wirt was not prepared to tell his nana that he was missing, let alone deal with the police and the school and whatever else came from that. That would just all be _too much_ , especially if there was a chance Wirt could have done something to help and hadn't done so.

He didn't want the guilt of that pressing down on him. And, well, he also didn't want to give the old guy Toby's nana lived with the idea that he was somehow responsible for Toby's disappearance, either. Wirt had the feeling it wouldn't take him longer than ten seconds to find out where the hatchet had once hung in their dorm room (since there was no way Wirt would risk having a weapon in there once anyone else got involved). He'd probably find the spot faster than Claire had, even if Wirt had thought he'd gotten rid of all evidence about hatchet in the first place, Of course, that could be an overreaction. He'd only heard the guy on a couple of calls—he wasn't always in; Toby had once said he and Nana travelled between their two homes—but Wirt had gotten the distinct impression that he was not someone to cross.

Given what might be up with Toby, Wirt wasn't willing to ignore his strange gut instinct. Not now. Not after it turned out it might have been right—about far too much—despite the fact that he'd tried ignoring everything.

Once Wirt started talking to the others, it got easier.

Before, he'd only been able to talk to Greg about this.

Now, Wendy and Jazz and even Danny were listening, occasionally interrupting with questions or jumping in with a quick tangent that give him a better idea of the lives they'd led before coming to college. That made it easier, too. Wirt was almost able to convince himself that this was a perfectly normal conversation, despite the seemingly fantastical subject matter.

And then Wendy's phone rang.

"It's Toby," she said before putting it on speaker and holding it out between them all. "Hey, Tobes, what's up?"

" _Grab your first aid kit and meet me in my dorm room. Hurry. Please."_


End file.
